


What Binds Us

by Anonymous



Category: Final Fantasy XV
Genre: Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics, Alternate Universe - Slavery, Dehumanization, M/M, Multi, Starts out as Gladnis with slow burn OT4 in part B, eventual pregnancy, minor depictions of violence, romance occurs after power balance is leveled
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-03-21
Updated: 2018-04-05
Packaged: 2019-04-05 13:11:10
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 21
Words: 30,266
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14044971
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/
Summary: Part A:Ignis Scientia is a beta, one of the ruling caste of Insomnia. Alphas and omegas are considered to be less than human, controlled only by their animalistic urges, and while most are detected at birth and sent off to lives befitting their station, some are known to present late.At eighteen, Ignis presents as an omega, and quickly finds that everything he's known about the world so far is wrong.Part B: Noctis, newly awakened into his identity as a latent alpha, is sent into exile. There, he must find a way to reclaim his birthright and fulfill his destiny in a world that doesn't see him as fully human.





	1. Part A: Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Please heed the warnings.
> 
> The dehumanization and slavery aspect of this AU is not depicted as a source of titillation, and is going to be a little distressing. Ignis has some privilege he needs to check at the gate as well, and so do a number of other characters. It will be addressed!

Ignis' first warning comes at noon.

He's standing in the corridor beyond the Minor Council room, fiddling with his keys while he waits for the meeting to let out. At eighteen, he's still waiting on his final security clearance to be approved, which means that he only has a few more months of standing at the door like an abandoned clerk before he can represent Noctis' seat at Council. Most days, he can handle the tedium well enough. Today, Ignis feels jittery, off-kilter, as though the world has tilted on its axis and left bits of his unoccupied mind rattling about. His neck itches something fierce, and sweat creeps down his skin with the tickle of an insect.

Then Noctis' alpha speaks.

"Hey."

Ignis has heard him speak before. It isn't uncommon for alphas and omegas to talk, of course, in their own way, but Ignis knows that none of them would be so bold as to speak to a beta unprompted. He glances sidelong at the alpha sitting against the wall by the door, the chain at his collar hooked to the rail for members of the Council's personal pets, and raises an eyebrow in disapproval.

Usually, this is enough to make an alpha back down. This one doesn't. He stares at Ignis with a level, unwavering gaze, and brushes back his long hair.

"Might wanna go home," he says. His voice is low, soft as a whisper. "Ride it out."

"Excuse me?" Ignis can't hold back an amused smile. Bless him, but Noct's alpha must be addled. It's only to be expected; Guard alphas aren't known for their intelligence, to say the least, and Noct hasn't seen fit to have this one fixed yet, since he hopes to have him bred one day. Perhaps it's only that time of year, and the poor thing can't think through the haze descending on his mind.

Ignis offers him a sympathetic look, and the alpha shrugs. It's an obvious slight, and Ignis makes a note to speak to Noctis about proper obedience training. Noct is, as always, dangerously lackadaisical with the keeping of his alpha.

The door opens at last, and Ignis straightens to attention as Noct slumps through, holding a stack of folders in both arms. Ignis takes half of them, and Noct flashes him a weary grin.

"Four hours of traffic laws, Iggy," he says. He unhooks the chain from the rail, and his alpha stands. "If I have to do that again, I think I'm gonna die."

"Buck up, Noct," Ignis says, slapping him squarely on the back. "Only, oh, sixty more years of these meetings to go, and then you can retire."

Noct huffs and nudges Ignis with a shoulder, and the two of them take off down the hall, the alpha following silently at their heels.

Ignis' second warning comes after lunch, when Noct sits up and presses the back of his hand to Ignis' forehead. 

"You look like shit, Specs," he says, and Ignis rolls his eyes. "No, really. You looked kinda pink before, but you're burning up. You wanna go home?"

"Noct." Ignis bats Noct's hand away. "I'm perfectly fine."

He isn't. His stomach is twisting, and the scent of their lunch has long turned sour, taking up all of his awareness as he tries to focus solely on breathing. But he's been through worse, he knows, having battled through a terrible case of the flu last year during the festival season. He can handle this. He can push through.

Noct's alpha, sitting on the ground at his beta's side, looks right into Ignis' eyes. Ignis looks away. 

"Go home," Noct says. "The day's half over, anyways."

Ignis could make an excuse, but now that Noct has given him a way out, all he feels is a deep, resounding exhaustion. He slumps in his chair, unbuttoning the top of his collar, and Noct raises his hands towards him as though revealing him to the Court.

"What'd I say?" He sits back and cracks open a soda. "Get some rest, Specs. I can take care of myself today."

Ignis barely makes it to his apartment. He has to stop to kneel over the public toilets in a convenience store nearby, clutching his aching abdomen and panting for breath. Nothing comes, thankfully, but it takes all his willpower to remain upright. When he does make it home, he collapses in the foyer, knees folding under him as his joints ache and his head throbs.

It's not unlike growing pains, Ignis thinks, as he drags himself to the bathroom. An entire decade's worth of growth spurts packed into one miserable afternoon. He sheds his clothes and climbs into the shower, where he lays on his side and lets the cold water run over his heated skin.

His third warning comes close to midnight, when Ignis wakes from feverish dreams to find that he has, to his mortification, wet the bed. He rolls off the sheets with a groan and bundles them up, but when he gives the mattress a cursory sniff, an alarm raises in his mind. It isn't right. He sniffs again, and looks down at the sheets. Then he staggers to the light switch and turns it on, staring blankly at the clear, damp spot in his bedding.

Slowly, with trembling fingers, he reaches behind himself to brush his damp skin. 

"Oh," he says.

Slowly, he gets to his knees on the carpet. He sits gingerly, still aching and sore, and stares at his cell phone on the bedside table as his life as he knows it unravels around him.


	2. Part A: Chapter 2

The first thing Ignis does is deadbolt the door. Then he looks at his hands, which haven't stopped shaking, and goes to the bathroom to scrub them raw. He takes a second, frantic shower, where he uses half a bar of soap and dashes too much shave gel on his neck as a preventative measure, and looks at his haggard face in the mirror. How quickly does it happen, the change from beta to omega, from man to beast? Is his mind already going, his higher faculties giving way for baser, animalistic urges?

No. Not yet. Surely not yet. He lurches for the bedroom, picks up a book at random, and sifts through it. He understands every word, though fear makes him jumpy, skipping between paragraphs and fumbling with the pages. He sets the book down and runs his hands over his face.

An omega. He can't be. His parents had him tested when he was born, surely the doctors would have known. But no, he's heard of this before. Late presentation, they call it, the phenomenon when the switch that triggers the change between beta, alpha, and omega clicks into place in someone's teens, even twenties, leading to awkwardness and a general shuffling of family units. There was one in the Glaives a few years back. Ignis remembers watching him as he was escorted out of the Citadel, screaming and wailing, kicking out at his captors until someone mercifully remembered to use a sedative.

Ignis' breath catches in his throat. A pipe in the wall groans, settling with the chill of early morning, and Ignis can almost hear the tramp of boots outside the apartment door.

When he calls Noctis to say that his fever hasn't broken, he can barely bring himself to speak.

"Shit," Noct says. "You do sound worse. You want me to send a doctor from the Citadel?"

Ignis forces a laugh. "For a cold? No, I'll be fine."

"Then rent an omega," Noct says. "The ones here are free."

Ignis is silent for so long that Noct has to call his name twice. "No need," he says at last.

"Yeah, no, this sounds bad." There's a scraping sound, a short intake of breath. "I know you like your privacy, Ignis, but... Maybe one of mine? You know them, sort of."

Ignis tries to remember what Noct's staff of omegas looks like. He doesn't even know their names, not when they can be summoned with a snap of the fingers and an authoritative tone.

But Noct's alpha... The one with the scar. He'd looked at Ignis, yesterday. Spoke to him, warned him. He knows.

"Perhaps." Ignis clears his throat. "Perhaps the alpha. Less likely to catch whatever I have."

"Oh." Noct hesitates. "Yeah, sure. I'm not going anywhere today, anyways."

Ignis doesn't remember saying goodbye. He certainly doesn't remember dropping his phone on the mess that used to be his bed, or mechanically slipping on a robe and stumbling for the kitchen. He only comes to when he has a mug of coffee in his hands, eyes closed, breathing in the scent of it. 

The doorbell rings. 

The mug shatters.

Ignis steps over the spreading pool of coffee on the kitchen tile and makes his way to the door. He yanks it open, nearly breaks off the chain, curses, then unbolts it properly. The alpha on the other side of the door only blinks. When the wretched door finally opens, the alpha walks in without so much as a word, the heavy collar at his neck gleaming in the light of Ignis' living room.

Then he turns and shuts the door. Ignis reaches for the bolt, but the alpha is watching him again, somber and still.

"Sit down," the alpha says. "Put your head between your knees."

Ignis opens his mouth. The outrage of being given an order by an alpha wells up, burning hot in his chest, before the weight of what he is brings Ignis back down. The alpha's face shifts, his brows knitting together, and he sighs.

"Alright," he says. "Get it out of your system, then."

"Get... get what, precisely?" Ignis asks. 

"This," the alpha says. "Pretending you're still a person."

"Still a... I'm not..."

"Give it a minute," the alpha says, and turns from him, heading for the kitchen. "You keep herbs here? Spices? Huh, so that's what I heard." He steps around the coffee and reaches for a rag.

"Don't!" 

The command bursts out of him before he can stop it, and Ignis lays a hand on the door as the alpha looks over his shoulder. It's too much, he knows, too much at once. He's standing in an apartment he legally cannot own, in clothes that will be donated to a charity as soon as he's found out, with a name and a title and a family history that doesn't belong to him anymore. And this alpha, the one who spotted him at the start, the one who sits at the end of a chain in Noctis' fist for half the day, is treating him like he's... Like he's no one. Like an omega, with no power, no authority, no claim to anything.

"Alright," the alpha says. Ignis' heartbeat is thrumming in his ears. "Maybe I'm doing this wrong. Can I clean up for you? Can you sit down? Yeah, that's fine," he says, as Ignis' knees buckle. "Right there is fine."

Ignis covers his face with his hands and tries to breathe. He can hear movement in the kitchen, the clink of ceramic, the quiet padding of the alpha's footsteps. There's a click, and the shuffling of boxes in Ignis' cabinet. 

After a minute, he feels a shadow pass over him, and Ignis looks up. The alpha is very broad at the shoulders, and there's a scar over one eye, trailing down his cheek. The mark of his status as a guard alpha, a tattoo, spreads over his arms and neck in the shape of an eagle, muted in the shadow he makes against the light. There's a twisted-up paper towel in his right hand, heavy with spices, and he drops to a knee at Ignis' side.

"I'm gonna put this on your neck," he says. "It's an old trick. Dulls your scent for a few hours."

Ignis winces as the alpha cups a hand over his neck, pressing the packet in the spot where most omegas' scent glands are supposed to be. Ignis can't feel a change, but when the alpha's hand starts to slip away, he lifts his own to the packet, holding it down.

"Good," the alpha says. "You're doing good."

"When will it happen?" Ignis asks. 

"Dunno. Don't think anyone else got close enough to notice."

"Not... Not that," Ignis says. "The change. When do I become..." 

A shadow, fawning and simpering, trembling when anyone so much as looks their way. A pet to be bred, their mind focused entirely on mating, on pleasing and being pleased. An omega.

"You are one," the alpha says. "Always have been. It's just your heat and scent that changes now."

Ignis narrows his eyes. Perhaps the alpha doesn't understand. "No," he says. "When do I change mentally? In my mind."

"Huh." The alpha sits back. "Okay." 

Then he gets up, turning from Ignis without a word. He goes to the coffee machine, uncannily bold, and pours two cups. He takes them both to the living room, where he sets them down and, watching Ignis the whole time, deliberately sits on Ignis' couch.

"C'mere and ask me my name," he says. "Then we can talk."

Ignis has no choice. He rises, hobbles out of the foyer, and sits on the far end of the couch. The alpha raises his good eyebrow and waits.

"May I have your name?" Ignis asks.

"Gladio," the alpha says. "Gladiolus. Yeah, I know, an alpha named after a flower. I heard my mom kept a garden, thought it would be nice to have a whole family of flowers one day. Heard she didn't want to give me up, either."

He leans down, takes a sip of coffee. "I still see her walking around, sometimes. And Dad. I have a sister, too, a beta, cute little thing. Brown hair, eyes like mine, 'bout eleven now. Heard her name is Iris."

"Iris Amicitia?" Ignis knows the Amicitias. Everyone does; They're the closest family to the king himself, with a seat on the Council. "You were Clarus' son?"

"Could've been." Gladio gestures to the second mug, and Ignis takes it without thinking. "And you used to be a Scientia."

Ignis' fingers tighten on the mug.

"So here's what'll happen," Gladio says. "Someone'll find out. You can't get around that. But his highness likes you. Maybe if you turn yourself in, you can keep working for him. Some people, they like omegas who can read and write. Most don't; They think it's dangerous, puts thoughts in our heads. As if we don't come up with any on our own."

Gladio gives Ignis a pointed look, but Ignis is adrift in an ocean of terror, picturing the world he'll be cast into. He sets the mug down and takes a shivery breath.

"Can it be hidden?" he asks. "This. What I am."

Gladio is silent for a moment. He lifts a hand to touch his collar, emblazoned with the Caelum insignia, and frowns.

"There's a doctor," he says. "I've never been, but I've heard whispers. Somewhere in the north side of town, calls herself Juno."

"And what does she offer?" 

Gladio shrugs. "It's dangerous," he says. "That's all I know."

Ignis looks down at his hands, the spices of Gladio's homemade suppressant trickling through his fingers.

"I fear that's a risk I'll have to take."


	3. Part A: Chapter 3

In the end, Ignis goes out to search for Juno alone. It would be too conspicuous to keep Gladio with him, and Gladio on his own, far from the address on his official work notice from Noct, would be taken back to the Citadel in minutes. So Ignis gets dressed, combs his hair, and steps out into a world that feels as alien as the depths of a strange and treacherous sea.

He eyes the alphas and omegas he passes as he drives down North Avenue, his gaze lingering on their leashes and collars. Their faces are carefully blank for the most part, but Ignis catches one sighing behind their beta's back, another smiling up at a hanging vine over a shop window, two whispering to each other where they sit by a food truck. They've always been little more than background noise in Ignis' life before this, not nearly as pressing as his duty to the crown, but now it strikes him just how _many_ there are. The streets are thick with them, and Ignis feels like a beacon, the truth of his new presentation stamped across his face. He waits for the inevitable curious looks, the questions, proper betas asking why an omega is wandering around loose. They don't come. Ignis even manages to ask one or two quiet questions of shop employees with only a few uncertain stares, and finally ends up in a small bookstore on the corner of South and Star, tucked between a cafe and a hair salon.

He opens the door, and a woman pops up from behind one of the stacks. Her black hair is tied back out of her eyes, which goggle behind thick, circular glasses, and she's carrying a cardboard box labeled Strips, which she drops without ceremony on the hardwood floor.

"Hey, you," she says. "You're looking for Sunny?"

Ignis tries to speak. It takes a moment. "Juno, actually," he says. For a terrifying second, the woman's face screws up in confusion.

"Oh," she says, just as Ignis is about to run for the door. "I haven't used that one in a while. A late bloomer, are you, hon? No problem. Step in back. Bring the box with you."

She goes to the door, flips the Closed sign, and strides for the back of the store. Ignis picks up the box of books, which are all romance novels, their covers glossy with embossed lettering and painted vistas. "Don't you want to know what I need?" He asks.

"I already know," the woman says. "Why ask? Time is one thing I don't like to waste, sweetheart, and you look like the kind of guy who can take ten minutes to say hello. Drop the books on the floor and sit on the table."

Ignis follows, bemused despite himself, into a small room set up like an accounting office, complete with an ancient calculator. He sets the box down gently and sits on the desktop.

The woman whirls on him, holding a cotton swab and a small flask of clear liquid. "Open your mouth."

"Wh." Ignis barely gets a word in before she swabs the roof of his mouth, making him choke and cough. She rolls her eyes and swirls the swab in the flask. The liquid changes color slowly, uncurling into a faint, cloudy green.

"Omega," she says. "Not the most accurate way of testing, mind, but unless you want to get up in the stirrups, it'll do the job. Okay. So what are you here for? Suppressants?"

"I don't know," Ignis says. "I only just..."

"Suppressants I have," she continues, as though Ignis hasn't spoken. "They block your scent, and your heats go down to once a year. You had your first heat yet?" Ignis starts to shake his head. "It'll hit you in a month or two even with the pills. Track how many days it takes. If you start fainting or vomiting, come to me, because let me tell you, that's a bad sign. Other than that, you're good."

Ignis stares at her. "Shouldn't I give you my medical history first?" he asks.

"No. I'd know who you are that way," she says. "If it fucks you up, stop taking it and see a doctor. You'll be caught, but you won't die."

Ignis thinks of the Glaive omega, thrashing in the hold of the soldiers dragging him to the king's justice, and nods.

"Alright," he says. "I'll take it. I'll take as many as you have."

Gladio is lying on Ignis' couch when he returns, feet dangling over one armrest, hands clasped behind his head. He cracks an eye open when Ignis locks the door and slumps against the wall.

"You find her?" he asks.

"Yes," Ignis says, "and I lost a year's salary in one go."

The look Gladio gives Ignis is merciless. "Must be nice," he says. "Havin' all that money to burn."

Ignis is too exhausted to rise to the bait. He just nods, and clutches the bag of small green pills to his chest. He'd taken one in her office, just to make sure, and it's making him feel sluggish and unsteady. Hopefully it's only a temporary side effect, but all Ignis wants to do now is. All he wants is to.

"Woah," Gladio says, rolling to his feet. "Easy, kid."

Ignis presses his back against the wall, struggling to keep upright, but then a strong pair of hands take him gently by the waist, and the world shifts sideways. Gladio lifts him with a grunt of surprise, jostling his gangly legs.

"Bit of a stork, aren't you?"

Ignis tries to scowl, but Gladio grins at whatever look he's managed to make instead, and walks him to the bedroom. "Guess I'll have to make the bed around you," he says, but his words warp and stutter, and before Ignis can interpret their meaning, he's descended into a heavy, impenetrable darkness.

He wakes at sunset. 

Gladio is sitting on the bed next to him, flipping through one of the novels from his bedside table. His hands are rough and calloused, but he's careful not to bend the spine of the book. He glances down at Ignis, who blinks slow.

"Taught myself while watching his highness," he says, nodding to the book. "How do you feel?"

"I don't know," Ignis says. He sits up. His stomach churns, but the ache in his abdomen is gone, and he doesn't feel the uncomfortable wetness that came in his sleep the night before. "Better, I think."

"You smell more like a beta," Gladio says. "Shame, really. You had a nice scent, as an omega."

Ignis sniffs his arm, but he can't smell anything but the lingering sting of exhaust and sweat. "I'd rather no one pick up that particular scent again," he says, and gives Gladio a knowing look.

"I have no one to tell," Gladio says. 

"You could tell Noct."

Gladio frowns slightly and closes the book. "I won't, though."

"Why?"

The silence between them stretches a little too long, and Ignis draws up his knees, dragging a pile of blankets with him. 

"How old are you?" Gladio asks.

"Eighteen."

"Don't know how old _I_ am." Gladio stares at the far wall, and his voice lowers, soft as it was yesterday, before Ignis' entire life turned on its head. "By the time I learned how to count, I couldn't remember. Tried to go by seasons, so... Maybe nineteen, twenty. Can't really imagine it, living my whole life as a person. Not sure if I'd survive presenting late, knowing what comes after." He looks at Ignis, and there's something in his eyes that sends a shiver of fear up Ignis' back. "Wasn't sure you would, either. You're proud. People like us, we can't have pride. It'll kill us, one way or another."

Ignis holds his breath.

"You gotta be ready to lose everything," Gladio says.

"I'm not," Ignis says, in a voice that threatens to break. "I can't."

"Then I'll help you 'til you are," Gladio says. 

Ignis drops his head to his knees, and feels a warmth settle over the back of his neck, hovering there for the span of a breath. Then Gladio's hand is there, stroking the short hairs at his neck, thumb tracing slow circles behind Ignis' ear. The tears that Ignis refuses to shed seem to ball up in his throat, and when he breathes, it comes out in a shuddering hiss. 

"It ain't much of a reason," Gladio says, as Ignis breaks apart under his hand, "but nobody deserves to go through this alone."


	4. Part A: Chapter 4

Ignis' first day back is fairly routine, but he wakes with a twist of pain in his stomach, and his hands are unsteady as he buttons up his dress shirt and snaps on his suspenders. Gladio is gone, back with Noct now that Ignis' so-called fever has passed, and Ignis' new stash of medication lies in neatly mislabeled bottles at the bottom of his file cabinet. He's as ready as he can be.

He has never felt so monumentally unprepared in his life.

Ignis half expects the guard at the Citadel gate to take his ID, stare at him with suspicion, and clap him in chains before he can make it to the front door. But all he does is shrug and yawn, passing Ignis' ID back with all the interest of a man nearing the end of his shift. The guards at the door don't seem to notice, either. Ignis passes by without comment, and even the alphas don't spare him a second glance.

He slips into the Lower Council meeting room, takes out his notes, and gets to work.

Then the door opens, and one of the Council members enter, a collared omega holding him up by the arm. Sir Hulder always has trouble with his back, of course, but he's notorious for shouting down anyone who suggests he invest in so much as a cane. An omega, however, red-haired and green-eyed, with a round, worried face, doesn't seem to count.

The omega's hair is plaited down her back, and she wears the colors of Sir Hulder's house, grey and green. She keeps her gaze down as she helps Sir Hulder to his seat, and as soon as he waves a hand, she kneels at his side. Every now and then, Ignis glances over to see wisps of her hair peeking out from over the edge of the table.

The rest of the day passes in a haze.

"I'll have to have him fixed," a woman says at eleven, jerking the leather lead hooked to the collar of a young alpha. "The bloodline breeds them weak, and I don't have the money to train up a litter."

"Damned useless thing," a clerk laughs at noon, as a tearful omega scurries to clean up a waterfall of reports headed for the shredder. The clerk nudges him aside with a foot, and he presses himself to the side of the wall until he's passed. 

"I was thinking of getting my daughter a nice blond for her birthday," an older man says, while Ignis waits at the door of a room he doesn't have clearance to enter. "One that can look pretty standing at the door. It'll teach my girl some responsibility, taking care of her own pet."

"Little more than animals," grunts a guard, shoving himself between an alpha and an omega just before three. The alpha snarls, and the guard cracks her on the back of the head with a baton. She stumbles to a knee, and the omega gasps and tries to lunge forward. Another guard grabs her by the arm. 

"Let them mate once and they think they own each other," the second guard says. Tears roll down the omega's cheeks, silent and terrible, and Ignis has to flee for the bathroom.

The omega's face follows him as he drives to Noct's apartment. He swears he can almost see her in the back seat, her square jaw set, brows twisted in misery. The alpha on the ground, dizzy and panting, hands clenched on the stone.

Noct's apartment is blissfully empty. The omegas who clean it are given orders to visit once a week, and judging by the trash piling up in the kitchen, they aren't due yet. The only sign that the apartment isn't abandoned are Noct's shoes at the door.

"Noct?" 

Ignis slips off his own shoes just as Noct appears from the living room, waving a controller in one hand. Ignis sighs, and Noct smiles crookedly.

"Before you ask, I got all my work done early," he says. "You're welcome."

"Truly, miracles are possible," Ignis says. "How do you feel about a treat before dinner? Something with chocolate, perhaps?"

"You're the best, Specs," Noct says. He retreats into the living room, which erupts in the chaotic sound of simulated gunfire, and Ignis starts pulling out the ingredients for a tart. After a moment, the volume goes down for a few seconds, before it amps back up to a comfortable ear-splitting level. Gladio appears around the living room wall, holding his chain in both hands so that it doesn't slide across the floor.

He and Ignis exchange a quick glance, and Ignis remembers the alpha on the ground, blinking back pain. He looks down.

Gladio rounds the kitchen counter and sits on the floor, taking up as little space as his considerable bulk will allow. It's improper for alphas or omegas to remain standing for too long, but what Ignis thought of as a perfectly reasonable rule last week now makes his mouth go dry. He swallows thickly and measures out the flour.

"Doin' okay?" Gladio's voice is faint, and his lips barely move.

"Well enough," Ignis whispers back. "No. Terrible, actually. I don't. I didn't think. Do alphas and omegas mate for life?"

"Sometimes," Gladio says with a shrug. "Most betas don't like it unless they're specialty breeders. If we claim each other, it makes it harder to separate us, or breed us with someone else. I knew a brother and sister who claimed each other, once, to keep from being sold off."

"Did it work?"

"No."

Ignis fetches leftover pastry dough from the fridge. 

"I wonder that you don't all hate us," he whispers.

"What makes you think we don't?" Gladio's amber eyes are fixed on Ignis, relentless and cold. Ignis wants to squirm away from them, to leave the half-finished tarts on the counter and run for the car, but he forces himself to look back.

"Surely Noctis treats you well," Ignis says.

"Alright." Gladio raises a hand to his collar. "Tell him who you are, then, and see for yourself."

The silence that follows is damning.

Ignis finishes making the tart fillings while the crusts cool from their first stint in the oven, and Gladio watches him, occasionally asking him small, pointed questions about his day. It all comes out in jerks, the truth of eighteen years of ignorance stumbling out while Ignis gently pours chocolate ganache and slices up slivers of almonds.

"I remember reading an historical account of Lucis," Ignis says, while the tarts cool on the rack, "that says that alphas and omegas were once the ruling castes."

"Before we were civilized, sure," Gladio says.

"Were we?"

Gladio shrugs. "Depends on who's doing the civilizing, I guess." He rolls his shoulders. "We have stories about it. Stuff that's passed on, you know, from those of us who weren't sold off from beta families. Stories about old kings and queens, about the first alpha and omega. That kind of thing."

"I'd like to hear them," Ignis says.

Gladio grimaces and cricks his neck. "Maybe we'll get the chance, some day."

Ignis tries for a smile, but then the television in the living room turns off, and Noct comes loping over. Gladio turns into an attentive statue, Ignis into a beta with prospects and a fine future ahead of him, and Ignis grits his teeth and lies his way through a perfectly ordinary afternoon.


	5. Part A: Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Heads up! This chapter includes a little smut.

Ignis' heat hits him three weeks later, while he's discussing reports from Duscae over dinner with Noctis. He's been ravenous all day, which doesn't do much to improve an already touchy mood, and Noct has long since rolled his eyes and given up on him. On his third run to the kitchen for coffee and one more slice of lemon meringue, Ignis freezes when Gladio's voice rings out across the room.

"Highness' friend don't look well." He never speaks in full sentences around Noct, if at all, and Noct and Ignis both look his way. He eyes Ignis sidelong, the way he's supposed to, but the tone of his voice is forbidding. Almost stern.

"What?" Noct props his chin on his hands. "What d'you mean, big guy?"

"Scent changed," Gladio says, and Ignis stiffens, his nerves jangling with alarm. Noct huffs a laugh, but Ignis has learned to recognize a warning when he hears one, and he lays a hand on the kitchen counter to steady himself.

"I think he likes you, Specs," Noct says, going back to his notes. "Probably thinks he's your mother or something, after that cold."

"It's true that..." Ignis does up the top button of his shirt. "That I've been feeling under the weather for some time. I thought it might be a relapse, but if I drink enough fluids..."

Noct groans. "Iggy. Why do you do this to yourself."

"I'm perfectly capable of knowing when I'm ill or not, Noctis," Ignis says.

"Uh huh. Which is why my alpha has to smell it on you before you tell me." Ignis presses his lips together. "Go home. Last thing I want is Dad lecturing me about letting my friends get themselves sick so I can read..." He scans the next page, "a summary of the Locals Meeting? Ignis, no."

"I can stay."

"No, go." Noct slumps on his arms. "Leave me to suffer. I'm fine. Feel better."

Ignis walks over to ruffle Noct's hair out of place, earning another horrified groan, and makes for the door. He stops to lean over Gladio, a hand on his shoulder.

"Thank you for your concern," he says, loud enough for Noct to hear. Noct laughs. This close, Ignis can smell the bland soap Gladio uses, the oils for his hair, and something else, something richer, darker. The name for it sits on the tip of Ignis' tongue, and he savors it, parsing the feel of it.

Gladio clears his throat, and Ignis straightens, heat rushing to his face. 

When he gets home, Ignis locks the door and turns off his phone. He sheds his clothes as he walks to the shower, sweat pouring down his back and mingling with the discomfiting damp of his trousers, and he lets them lie where they fall. Heat, it turns out, is a bit of an understatement. Ignis stands under the cold stream of his showerhead and wonders that he hasn't fogged the glass with his body heat alone. His skin is on fire, itching like it had when he first presented, and Ignis can feel arousal curling in his gut, low and insistent.

Still, it isn't impossible to ignore. 

The jittery feeling that's nagged him through much of the day returns with a vengeance, and Ignis paces through the apartment, unable to focus on one task for more than a few minutes at a time. He ends up in the bedroom, where he stares at his bed and remembers that omegas in his parents' household liked to build nests out of their bedding. 

He drags a blanket off the mattress and looks down at it for a solid minute before he discards it.

"None of this makes sense," he says to the room at large. 

If his bed does end up looking like a nest by sunset, it isn't by design. Ignis can't lie still, his thoughts racing, body protesting every time he stays in one position for too long. His pillows are wedged between his legs, his quilt has disappeared off the side of the bed somewhere, and his sheets are a tangled mess.

And Ignis finally finds something he can think about for more than a few seconds.

He rolls his hand over the head of his cock on the way up, arching his back off the bed, and gasps a name into the dark. His gaze is set on the headboard, but what he sees is a pair of hands, skin roughened with work, running over his back and under the curve of his ass. He thinks of an eagle tattoo sliding over hard muscle, the edge that creeps into those golden eyes, the softness of a low voice calling his name. 

He comes with a sob, grinding his teeth together, and covers his face with his forearm. None of this is possible. If Ignis is to continue as he has, he'll have to watch Gladio be led about by a leash for the rest of his life. They'll speak in furtive whispers when no one is watching, risk a few brief touches to the leg or shoulder, small comforts in a world that should be enough for both of them, and eventually, Gladio will be put out to. Out to stud. He'll be given a mate, or many of them, some poor omegas with lives and loves of their own, a forced coupling sanctioned by the crown, by _Noct._

This is the world Noct will inherit one day, Ignis thinks, tilting his head back on the messy sheets. Then he slowly rolls off the bed, wrapping his abandoned quilt around his shoulders, and waits for sleep to come.

The Ignis that returns from his first heat is not the same Ignis that left a few days before. He has the same skills, the same mind, but he can feel the Citadel changing around him as he passes through the lower levels. It's as though he's a stranger in his own life, an anthropologist inhabiting his body while he goes about his duties. He spends more time in the records office, or in the library, or wandering the public halls. He notes who he meets and where, which alphas flinch and which omegas take too long to obey a command, how resistance takes its shape. 

On his second week back, Ignis skips lunch. He takes the elevator to the thirtieth floor, where the public gallery is, and passes the classic line from the Cosmogony, heading for the part of the gallery where the smaller, less impressive paintings are. The works here are landscapes and floral scenes, and Ignis stops before a painting of a vase of daisies. A woman sits on the bench there, her dark hair pinned with a jeweled clasp, hands folded in her lap.

"It's a lovely piece," Ignis says.

The woman smiles in a distracted, distant way. "Yes, it is." She regards Ignis for a moment, then snaps her fingers, making him jump. "Oh! Oh, I know you. You're the Scientia boy, the one who works with the prince."

"Yes, ma'am." Ignis sits next to her. "We haven't seen you in some time, though your husband appears on Council often enough. He could use your influence, ma'am. I've always been impressed with your ability to break the tension in a meeting."

"All betas can do it, you know," she says. Her amber eyes narrow in amusement. "We've just forgotten how, over the years. It's how we... Oh, well. It will sound terribly seditious of me."

"Please," Ignis says. 

"It's how we suppressed rebellion, in the beginning." She waves her hand down the long gallery. "There's a painting depicting it down the way. Horrible thing. If utilized correctly, a beta can stun an alpha or omega. Quell their emotions long enough to gain the upper hand. We were mediators, once. Look where we are now."

Ignis nods. Noctis himself is taking lessons in mediation from the king, with mixed results. Ignis looks his companion in the eye, heart in his throat, and takes the second greatest risk of his life.

"Mrs. Amicitia," he says, in a quiet tone. "I believe I am acquainted with your son."

Mrs. Amicitia shrinks back on the bench, clutching the front of her jacket in a fist. Her lips part, but no sound emerges, and Ignis hurriedly rises to his feet.

"I apologize," he says. "I must be mistaken."

"My son," she says.

"It was a misunderstanding. I beg your f--"

Mrs. Amicitia takes Ignis' wrist, dragging him down to the bench again. "You called him my son," she says. "Alphas are sons to no one. What are you to him?"

She's far too close. Ignis leans away as she peers into his face, her own eyes narrowing, her voice taking on a wondering tone, low and smooth. 

"What _are_ you?"


	6. Part A: Chapter 6

The Amicitia manor is a small one, set just outside the Citadel walls. The first floor is lined with oak and cedar, with worn furniture that must be hundreds of years old, glass display cases, and a pile of books with bright covers next to a toxic yellow bean bag. It's a comfortable house, an old house, one of the foundations of the upper city.

Mrs. Amicitia's private study is a mess of flowers. There are lilies everywhere, inlaid in gold on the door, carved into beads from the ceiling fan, unfurling wooden blossoms on a lamp at the desk. Even the tea is floral, a jasmine blend that Mrs. Amicitia spills twice before Ignis, whose hands are steadier, takes the teapot from her grip.

"My sisters," she says, pushing a small picture frame towards Ignis. He squints down at a print of a formal painting, two girls sitting back to back, one kneeling over them, arms wrapped around their shoulders. 

"Very charming," he says, because he knows something is expected of him. Mrs. Amicitia takes a sip of her tea and sits down in a faded blue chair.

"No, we were all rather plain," she says, "but that's kind of you. They were alphas. It runs in the family, you know. My father didn't see why he should let his girls be sold off for what he called a mistake of their birth, so they grew up with me. Trapped in the house, of course, because they couldn't run around loose."

Her eyes take on that same vague, faraway look they had when she'd stared at the painting in the gallery. "They were taken when I was fifteen. Poor Gladiolus. The oldest, there." She points to the kneeling girl. "She always said she'd kill anyone who touched one of us. They killed her a year later, running for Tenebrae. So I thought... I thought when my son was born, this was a blessing. A chance to protect my family the way I couldn't before."

Ignis sits very still. His fingers leave smudges on the teacup as he sets it down.

"Then they took him," Mrs. Amicitia says. "While I slept, holding him. _Holding_ him. Clarus said he'd be cared for, kept by the king himself, but when I saw the. The collar, on his neck..."

"I'm sorry," Ignis says. It isn't nearly enough, but it's all he can give. 

"I've thought up a thousand ways to save him," Mrs. Amicitia says, "but every one ends the same. Another Gladiolus dead, far from home."

"So you haven't done anything?" Ignis asks. 

Mrs. Amicitia gives him a look so like Gladio at his sternest that Ignis nearly fumbles with his cup.

"Now why on earth," she says, "would you say a ridiculous thing like that?"

 

*

 

Ignis returns to work a few hours later, still reeling slightly. Doctors like Juno, it seems, are only the beginning. There are pockets of rebellion scattered all over Lucis, people who give up their homes to keep alphas and omegas on the run, doctors who create under the table suppressants and heat blockers, a whole system of people trying to locate lost children and broken families. Mrs. Amicitia funds half of them, draining her own inheritance in the process. Ignis feels like he's been dropped into a tide already halfway to shore, having only just discovered the nature of water.

He finds Gladio seated on the floor outside of the Crownsguard training hall, where Noctis is due for an hour of getting his ass handed to him by Cor. He's breathing hard and glistening with sweat, which must mean his own training only just concluded, and he has a while to wait. 

Without preamble, Ignis sits down next to him. 

"Hey," Gladio hisses. "Don't look so friendly."

"You were named after your aunt," Ignis says. "An alpha, like you." He hands Gladio the print of his mother and aunts, which he takes with great care.

"Huh," he says. "Kind of boring-looking." But he's smiling all the same, and he stares at them hungrily, taking in every detail. "Which one's me?"

"The oldest." Ignis points her out, and Gladio grins. 

"I'm still prettier, then," he says, and winks at Ignis. "Where'd you get this? You didn't loot the Amicitia place, did you?"

"No." Ignis leans close, never minding the sweat that dampens his sleeve. "I met her upstairs. Your mother. She still wants you, Gladio."

"I know." Gladio's smile twists. "First time she saw me, looked like she was gonna faint. I hoped maybe Iris would be enough for her."

"I don't think she'll ever--"

"Ignis Scientia?"

Ignis feels Gladio straighten to attention at his side. He looks up, and up, and up further still, into the grim, implacable face of Titus Drautos, captain of the Kingsglaive.

"Sir." Ignis struggles to stand. "I apologize. I was a bit tired, so I."

"Cozied up to an alpha?" Drautos says. "Completely by accident, I bet."

"What exactly are you implying?" Ignis tries to cover the panic in his voice with outrage, but it comes out sounding breathless and hoarse.

"Just that I have eyes, Scientia." Drautos turns, and regards Gladio dispassionately. "Don't think that a quiet nature makes them peacable. Creatures like this one are bred to be violent."

Except Gladio wasn't bred in the first place, Ignis thinks, as Drautos walks off. Not that arguing the point would get them anywhere. Instead, Ignis stands a few feet away from Gladio, hands in his pockets, cheeks burning like a torch.

"I'm sorry," he says.

Gladio slips the print from behind his back and holds it out. "Shouldn't have to be. Keep it for me, Iggy."

Ignis takes the print, holding the back of Gladio'd hand just a second longer than necessary. "Iggy?" 

"Well." Gladio shrugs, and his small smile makes Ignis' face flush darker still. "So long as we're cozyin' up."


	7. Part A: Chapter 7

There is a small room in the back of a theater a few blocks south of the Citadel, lined with locks and deadbolts. It's full of boxes of old tax records and printer paper no one uses anymore, with an ancient coffeemaker gurgling away on a fold-out table, and a few faded pictures hang on dusty frames. Right now, while the action flick on the other side of the wall booms with the sound of fictional cannons, the theater owner pulls out a chair and sits down, gazing up at the others seated around her.

"First thing's first," she says. "Harold's daughter gave birth last week. A healthy girl, omega. They'll need scent diffusers for the house until she's old enough for suppressants, so if anyone's willing to part with a few, I have a donation box in the cash office."

There's a general murmur of assent, and one or two of their number pats a large, bearded man on the shoulder. He shrugs and smiles into his hand.

"Screams half the night, though," he adds, "so if you have a spare bed for me to lie out on for the meeting..."

"Harold, no," says the man next to him, shoving him with an elbow. 

The theater owner shuffles some papers in her lap. "No luck, Harry. And it looks like Lily brought us a new friend."

Ignis, sitting so close to Mrs. Amicitia that he's practically melded into her coat, straightens somewhat, and inclines his head.

"I'm--"

"Achilles," Mrs. Amicitia says. "A family friend."

Ignis sinks back into his chair. There's a low murmur of greeting, a few suspicious looks, and he tucks his hands into the front pocket of his hoodie and sighs. 

Officially, he's taking Mrs. Amicitia to a garden on the edge of town, to discuss her family's stance on a few new bills in Council. And they'll get there eventually, just for the look of it. They might even mention the Council once or twice. But the real reason Ignis stepped into Mrs. Amicitia's car is this: The local chapter of an unnamed, loosely organized system of people whose lives center around the abolition of what, until a few months ago, Ignis thought was a reasonable hierarchy. 

The leader of the little group clears her throat. "Still no luck in the Citadel, Lily?"

Mrs. Amicitia shakes her head. "We're too closely monitored. After we lost Libertus the other year, they've planted their own spies. It's a rat's nest of complications."

"One I'm sure you can unravel, Lily," one of the women in the circle says. Mrs. Amicitia gives her a grateful look, and they reach across Ignis to clasp hands.

"Alright, enough of that," says a man in the corner. "I have news. Someone is watching Sonya's bookstore. Some of you might know her as Sunny or Juno."

Ignis shivers, and Mrs. Amicitia glances his way. She places a hand on his knee, and he takes a breath, bracing himself.

"Spread the word that no one should head in for supplies until it's clear," the man says. "She'll be selling her suppressants at one of our other locations in the meantime. Come to me or Leo if you need directions."

"Gods willing, this is just routine," the theater owner says. "Now, onto the next point of order..."

When Ignis emerges at last into the sunlight of an Insomnian autumn, he lets out such a sigh of exhaustion that Mrs. Amicitia laughs. 

"Bless, you did well," she says, wrapping an arm around his shoulder. "My first meeting? I was shaking like a leaf the whole time. Of course, I was a bit younger than you, only twenty."

"Ma'am," Ignis says. "I'm nineteen next spring."

Mrs. Amicitia lets out a cry of horror and whirls to face him. "So young," she says. "Are your parents supporting you, at least?"

"I haven't..." Ignis bites his cheek. "My uncle and I have dinner, now and then, but my parents live in the country, and we haven't..."

He grunts as Mrs. Amicitia engulfs him in her arms. "Well," she says. "I'll be here in their place. Let's have lunch, and you can tell me all about it."

"About..." Ignis blinks, thrown off by her brisk tone and crushing grip. "About what?"

"Oh," Mrs. Amicitia says, eyes twinkling. "Everything, of course."

 

*

 

"She's a monster," Ignis tells Gladio a few days later. They're in Noct's apartment, alone for a precious few hours before Noct has to come home from school, and Gladio is taste testing Ignis' latest attempt at a Tenebraean tart. "A perfectly lovely monster, but gods. I feel like I've been through a hurricane every time we speak."

"I like her already," Gladio says. "She'll loosen you up a little." Ignis passes him a sliver of chocolate, and he chews thoughtfully. "Fucking amazing, but too much raspberry."

"Damn. Oh well, there's always next time." Ignis starts boxing up the tarts, but stops when he feels the heat of Gladio's gaze on his back. He turns to find him watching him almost fondly, head tilted to the side. "Yes?"

"Just thinking," Gladio says. "It's nice, doing things like this. You're so different when we're alone."

Ignis' hand slips off the counter, dangling at his side. Gladio steps closer, twining their fingers together, and Ignis' breath hitches in his throat.

"Sometimes I think about goin' to Tenebrae," Gladio says, in that soft, rumbling voice. His face is so close that Ignis can see the raised skin around his scar, and every long, dark eyelash. "Find a house somewhere, maybe. I know it ain't perfect there, but it's the closest thing to it, and, well... I always wanted to run a school, teach other omegas and alphas how to read and write."

"That's an admirable dream," Ignis says.

"Yeah." Gladio raises his free hand to Ignis' cheek, running a calloused thumb over the line of his jaw. Ignis tries to swallow discreetly. "But you know, dreams change. Get a little bigger, sometimes. Because now, whenever I think about it, you're there, too."

Ignis opens his mouth, but the words die on his tongue, so he presses his lips to Gladio's instead. Gladio's eyes widen for a fraction of a second, then close, and he pulls Ignis towards him. Ignis digs his hands in Gladio's hair as their kiss deepens, stands on his toes to get closer, knocking both of them into the counter as he does. One of the tarts crashes to the floor, but Ignis doesn't care, not when Gladio is nuzzling his neck, lips trailing over the scent gland obscured by his collar. Ignis gasps out a moan, and Gladio rakes teeth over his skin.

It's a terrible decision. Ignis knows this. He knows that going any farther than this, that spending another second with his hands exploring the taut muscles of Gladio's back, of murmuring his name into his ear, is as impossible as a school in Tenebrae. But when they stumble into the living room, collapsing in a breathless tangle on the carpet, Ignis can only hold Gladio's face in his hands and pull him down for another kiss.

"Look at that smile," Gladio whispers, and Ignis realizes, for the first time in months, that in this moment, he is truly, perfectly happy. He laughs, and Gladio smiles back, chasing another round of breathless, magnificent kisses.


	8. Part A: Chapter 8

The day that Ignis' security clearance finally goes through, Noct buys him dinner. It's grilled steak from Noct's part-time job, a little overcooked for Ignis' tastes, but the thought is enough to make up for it. He gives Noct liberal praise for the gesture, and Noct blushes and shrugs and tries to look nonchalant. It would be a perfect evening if it weren't for the fact that Gladio is chained up in the small room where he sleeps, far from Ignis' reach.

"Bet you're glad you don't have to stand outside the door like a guard alpha for the rest of your life," Noct says, passing Ignis a tray of roasted potatoes. Ignis can't hold back a frown, and Noct sighs. "Okay. There it is again."

"What do you mean, Noct?" Ignis scoops some potatoes onto his plate, trying to refrain from noting how Noct has seemingly forgotten to bring anything green. 

"I mean every time I talk about alphas or omegas, you get twitchy." Noct leans on his elbows. "Prompto gets like that, too, sometimes. It's why I stopped bringing my alpha to school. He said he doesn't like the way he's chained."

"Do you think Prompto might be an abolitionist?" Ignis asks.

"What, one of those people who wave signs whenever Dad checks the Wall? Prompto? He'd never." Noct stuffs his mouth with steak. "But he's uncomfortable. You are, too. More than him, which is weird, because you never cared before."

Ignis takes off his glasses. "Noct. Have you ever considered... No. I don't know if I can have this conversation."

Noct looks at him sharply. "Okay," he says. "Fine. But you know the door's open. You're my best friend, Specs. If something's up with the way I treat my alphas or omegas, I want you to tell me."

"Alright," Ignis says, and pats Noct's hand. "If something does come up, I'll address it."

He suspects, as they silently returns to their meal, that Noct knows just as well as he does that he never will.

 

Gladio and Ignis continue to steal moments to themselves, when they can. They eat together in the kitchen on Ignis' off hours while Noct is at school, talk in whispers in the hall, and share a few brief, thrilling kisses when they're alone. Ignis starts to come to Noct's apartment to clean up when the omega staff isn't there, and puts on an audiobook while he does. They make it through most of a murder mystery, debating the identity of the true killer on off days, and Gladio proves to be too cunning by half, picking out narrative tropes with a ruthlessness Ignis hasn't seen since his last tutor retired.

Ignis can still feel the warmth of Gladio's lips on his when he slips next to Noct's seat at the Upper Council, on a frigid day at the end of the year. Noct gives him a pained look, and Ignis smirks, kicking him under the table.

"Welcome to the most boring day of your life," Noct whispers, and the Council member at his right casts them both a scathing glare before sinking back into his winter coat. Ignis and Noct meet each other's eyes, and Noct has to duck his head to hide a grin.

They're an hour into the meeting, Ignis struggling to stay awake through Council member Aliane's toneless drone, when the side door opens. The table looks up as one person, Aliane's voice trailing into silence, as Mrs. Amicitia staggers into the room.

"Lily," Clarus says, rising from his chair. But she isn't there for him. Her eyes, tight with fear in an ashen face, turn to Ignis and stay there. Ignis feels a chill that has nothing to do with the bite of winter, and places a hand on the edge of the table.

"Excuse me, Noct," he murmurs, and gets to his feet. Half the table looks his way, but the rest are focused on Lily, who resists her husband's attempts to urge her out the door.

Ignis almost makes it to the far door when a pair of Crownsguard soldiers file in after Mrs. Amicitia, padded armor strapped over their shoulders.

"Ignis Scientia," one of them says. Ignis freezes, his hand on the door.

"Specs?" Noct whispers.

Ignis yanks open the door, and booted footsteps crash through the shocked silence of the Council room.

"Omega," the soldier shouts, and Ignis is gone, taking off down the hall. Behind him, he can hear the clink and groan of Gladio's chain on its hook, Gladio's voice calling his name, but he doesn't dare look back. He kicks off his uncomfortable dress shoes, loosens his tie, ignores the cries of the people he runs into on his way to the stairs. He's on the fifteenth floor; The guards should expect him to make for the garage, where his car is parked, so Ignis shoves open the door to the service stairwell and careens down it. 

He stops at the twelfth floor, which he crosses in a rush, panting and stumbling, to take the stairwell on the other side. He makes it four flights with no sound of pursuit, but when he opens the door to cross to the other side again, he can hear a chorus of voices down the hall. A veritable army of Crownsguard are crowded together at the elevator, and they spot him instantly. Ignis groans and makes for the nearest office, which is blessedly empty. He takes a chair, heavy and well-made, and swings it with all the strength left in him towards the wide window. The window shatters just as the door opens behind him, and Ignis kicks apart the last panel of fractured glass and 

And a hand grabs the back of his neck

And a boot kicks the back of his knees

And the prick of a needle punctures his thigh

And the room tilts, twists, breaking like the window that still drops shards of glass eight stories down, falling piece by piece into a fog that clouds Ignis' mind and makes the hammering of his heart beat unnaturally loud in his ears, over and over and over.


	9. Part A: Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning: Mind the tags. The worst of the dehumanization and violence happens here.

Ignis comes to slowly, dragging himself through the haze of wavering dreams and into a stuttering, uncertain awareness. The first thing that registers is that he's naked. He wants to shift his legs, to cover himself, but a small, insistent part of his mind suggests that it would be better to pretend to stay asleep as long as he can. It isn't cold, at least. No, that's wrong. His hands are cold, and awkwardly placed behind his back, where his right arm has fallen asleep. Ignis curls his fingers, and feels the cool, smooth surface of a shackle. He rolls slightly, and the chain attached to it scrapes across the ground.

Ah.

Ignis feels strangely calm. Perhaps it's the drug affecting him, or the shock, or the terrifying run through the Citadel. He goes over where he might have slipped up. It could be that one of the members of Mrs. Amicitia's group betrayed them. Perhaps Sonya's store was raided, and she was able to identify enough of Ignis to make a case. Perhaps someone saw him talking to Gladio once too often and searched his rooms.

When his mind clears enough to make space for fear, hard and bitter on his tongue, Ignis opens his eyes.

There's a man in the room with him.

The room is cramped and bare, the walls made of plated steel, and the man who sits on the only chair in the center of the dusty floor is almost comically large in comparison. His blond hair is close-cropped, like a soldier's, and his eyes are pale and bloodshot. A clipboard is propped on his knee, and Ignis catches sight of a weighted baton hanging from his hip.

"Omega," the man says. "Formerly Ignis of house Scientia, advisor-in-training to the prince."

Ignis draws his legs up, struggling to rise. He manages to wobble into a seated position, and the man watches him with a blank, uninterested expression as he straightens his shoulders.

"Omega," he says again. "I addressed you."

"Use my name," Ignis says. The man's gaze flicks over him, up and down, and he makes a note on the clipboard. 

"How long have you been impersonating a beta while taking wages from the Crown?" the man asks.

"I'll need to speak to a lawyer," Ignis says.

Another mark on the clipboard. "When did you first enter Sonya Yeagre's bookstore to receive the suppressants we found in the apartment you've been squatting in?" 

"I own that apartment."

A third mark.

"Who has been helping you complete your tasks for the Crown?" he asks. "Our records indicate that you've been spending time with Lilian Amicitia lately. Has she been doing your work for you, since your presentation rendered you incapable?"

"I am not incapable," Ignis says. He grips the shackles around his wrists, nails scraping over the metal. "She had nothing to do with this."

"Then who?" 

Ignis stares him down, refusing to avert his gaze, and the man sighs and gets to his feet.

"Every fucking time," he says. He shakes out his hand, which is all the warning Ignis gets before he strikes, sending Ignis toppling to the floor. He scrambles to rise, fingers trying for purchase on the steel floor, and tries to ignore the searing pain in his cheek.

A boot rests lightly on his face, and Ignis goes still.

"Here's the thing," the man says, as though his heel isn't digging into Ignis' throat. "It's not like we aren't sorry for you. You must be confused, after living most of your life thinking you're a beta. But you aren't one. And if you don't give up the act, people are gonna decide that it doesn't matter what his highness says, it's hard labor in Duscae in your future."

Ignis' breath catches painfully. Noctis intervened? How? How much does he know? He wants to ask, but the pressure on his throat doesn't lessen, and he gasps wetly on the floor beneath him instead, curling and uncurling his fingers.

"An omega in service to the crown doesn't lie," the man says. "They don't run. They don't talk back, or put on airs, or look a beta in the eye like a fucking person." He lifts his foot, and Ignis gasps for air. "They do what they're told and take what they're given. It's kinder, that way. Look what you did with no one around to give you orders. Look at the shit you caused, the chaos in the ranks."

Ignis blinks up at him, and receives a kick in the stomach for his trouble. "Eyes down, omega."

"Is the chaos on the floor, then?" Ignis asks, which is, he knows, probably not the most tactful choice he's ever made. The man's feet shuffle, the tendons in his legs shifting, and there's the sound of leather sliding together somewhere above him.

"Alright," the man says. "I'm not much of an obedience trainer, but like hell I'm sending you up to the prince without knowing your place. First lesson," he says, and shoves Ignis with the toe of his boot, rolling him onto his back. "The subtle art of _Yes, Sir."_

 

A proper obedience trainer comes in later, when Ignis is curled in on himself in the corner of the room with his ribs smarting and his neck dotted with bruises. The trainer is young, only a few years older than Ignis, and sickeningly soft-spoken. She speaks to him as one would to a frightened animal, cooing over the bruises that bloom on his skin and holding out the grey uniform of a Citadel omega as though it's a rare treat.

"Don't you look nice," she says, as she helps him dress, a task made humiliating by his shackled wrists. "I know you want to be good. That's why you tried to be a beta for so long, isn't it? So you could be helpful to your master. See?" She pets his hair, and Ignis swallows a shudder of revulsion. "Even when you try to hide it, your nature comes out. That mean guard doesn't see it, but I do."

Ignis bites his tongue, an acerbic remark burning in his gut, and then the trainer says something that makes him look up into her wide, sea-blue eyes.

"Even Captain Drautos saw it. He's the one who told us about you and that alpha," she says. Her hands tighten on his hair, and she twists his head so that he's forced to stare at her feet. "Nuh-uh, don't be bold. Let it happen. Let your omega self take over. And then you can see your master again, and he might even let that big, handsome alpha mate you. A clever boy like you and a big one like him, I bet you can make a beta who'll be everything you aren't."

Ignis' stomach churns. He managed to hold back the bile through beatings, through slurs and shouts and curses, but the sweet, wheedling sound of the obedience trainer is enough to make his entire body revolt. He stiffens, and she lets go of his hair to stand and brush off her hands.

"Will you be a good boy and see his highness?" she asks.

Ignis chokes out a strangled _yes._

She makes him crawl to the van. He's strapped in the back like luggage, and he's jostled in the darkness as tinny music floods the speakers, set to a backdrop of what must be thought to be comforting ocean sounds. Then the van stops, he's released, and the woman makes him crawl at her heels through the front doors of an apartment complex Ignis walked through on his own two feet not a day before.

Noctis opens the door to his apartment before the bell stops ringing. Ignis doesn't look up, but he can tell that Noct's a mess by the way he hasn't taken off his suit or dress shoes from earlier, and he hears a harsh breath above him.

"The fuck did you do to him?" Noct asks.

"I'm afraid he was resistant during his interrogation," the trainer says, the syrupy sweetness gone from her voice. "Steps had to be taken, but I assure you, with a little extra training, he can be a serviceable omega for your highness."

"I..." Noct sounds broken, his voice wavering. "Let him in and go, please."

"Your highness, there are forms to sign."

"Give them to Ig--" Noct stops, and Ignis risks a glance up. Noct's face is pale, his eyes red-rimmed and hollow with lack of sleep. "I'll sign them tomorrow. Just go. That's an order. If you want to, if you want to go over me, talk to the king."

Ignis crawls into the apartment, and the trainer bows before she turns to go, heels clacking on the hallway tile.

Noct slams the door.

"Fuck." He's never sounded so distraught, Ignis thinks, not since his father started walking with a cane. "Fuck. Fuck, tell me they didn't, didn't break you, Iggy, tell me that's still you in there." Noct drops to his knees before Ignis, gingerly touching his shoulders. Ignis winces, and Noct draws up his sleeve to reveal a purpling bruise.

"I'm still here," Ignis says, and Noct nearly sobs with relief. He holds Ignis by his shirtfront, head bowed, and Ignis gathers him into his arms. Noct practically climbs into his lap, seventeen years old and still coming to him for comfort, still unable to process the thought of the people he loves being at risk. Ignis strokes his hair. "I'm not broken."

"You wouldn't look at me," Noct whispers. "You aren't... This has to be a mistake. I've been with you every day. You can't be an omega, no omega acts like you do. They, they're all gonna go to jail for this, Specs, I promise, I..."

"Noct." Ignis pushes Noct back a little, looking over his red, miserable face. "Noct, I'm an omega. I presented when--"

"No."

"I presented nearly half a year--"

"No, Ignis."

"I had my first heat a few months ago," Ignis says, raising his voice. Noct falls silent. "I'm sorry that I didn't tell you, but Noctis, I've been an omega this whole time. Every day we've known each other. All our lives."

Noct searches his face. "But you're a genius," he says. "You had the highest scores in the Citadel."

"I know."

Noct breathes slowly, and Ignis can see him try to process this. His hands tighten on Ignis' shirt, and he slides out of his lap, legs folded awkwardly beneath him. "I don't know what to do, Iggy. I don't know how to deal with this."

"Well, I suppose you own me, now," Ignis says, and Noct flinches.

"It's the only thing I could think of," he says. "Mrs. Amicitia said she wanted to buy you, but I didn't know what she'd want you for, and I didn't want to see you... Like that." He gestures to the door. "At someone's feet, like a--"

"Like an omega," Ignis says. "Like an alpha. Like the one you keep chained up in the hallway when you're bored with him."

Noct's eyes are haunted. "He isn't like you, Ignis."

"He's intelligent," Ignis says. He knows it hurts, knows that Noct would rather run from this, but he presses on regardless. "He's kind. He has a soul, and a family, and dreams of the future. And you keep him collared. Just as you'll have to keep me collared."

Noct shakes his head. "I'd never do that to you."

"If you want me to stay with you, you will."

Noct runs a hand through his hair, staring down at the floor as though it has opened up beneath him, revealing a yawning pit. "I'm sorry you had to learn this way, Noct. May I speak with Gladio a moment? Your alpha, Noctis. Is he here?"

Noct nods. "In his room."

"I'm sorry," Ignis says, rising to his feet for the first time in what feels like a year. Noct rubs at his eyes with the heel of his hand.

"Yeah," he whispers. "Yeah, me too."

Ignis leaves him there, stricken in the middle of the foyer, and turns down the narrow hall towards Gladio's room. He nudges the door open, rapping on it with his knuckles, and gasps as Gladio appears, pulling Ignis out of the hall and into his dismally furnished room.

They collapse together on Gladio's bed, which is little more than a mattress and a few blankets on the floor, and Gladio pins Ignis under him. He nuzzles Ignis' collarbone, lips ghosting over fresh bruises, and he runs his tongue over Ignis' scent gland. Ignis grabs his arms, blinking hard, and tilts his chin to give him better access.

"Gladio," he whispers. "I'm fine. I'm alright."

"Let me just..." Gladio's voice is thick with pain. "Let me be an alpha for a second, okay?" 

Ignis opens his hands in surrender, and can't help but let out a huff of laughter when Gladio snuggles close, treating him more like a much loved teddy-bear than anything else. Ignis isn't sure what an omega is meant to do in this situation, but he settles for kissing every inch of skin he can find, running his lips over the feathers of Gladio's tattoo.

"They didn't collar you," Gladio says, speaking into Ignis' neck. "I can claim you, if you want. They want me to breed, so maybe if we're mated, they'll have a reason to keep you around."

"You said that doesn't always work," Ignis points out.

Gladio's eyes are wet when he pulls away, and Ignis reaches up to brush a tear from his nose. "What choice do we have?"

"You're right," Ignis says. "Do it. I'm not... not ready yet."

Gladio frowns, sitting up. "Getting mixed signals, here," Gladio says. "You aren't ready?"

"To lose everything," Ignis says, and pulls him back down. "I lost who I was, Gladio, but I can't lose this. I'm not losing you."

"You won't," Gladio says, and brushes Ignis' hair back from his neck. "I promise."

For a second, Ignis sees a flicker of shadow under the crack of the door. Then it's gone, and Gladio is kissing him, slow and fond and yet terribly desperate, and all Ignis can think of is the heat of him, the comfort of his touch. He draws back, and Ignis cries out as Gladio bends over him, sinking sharp teeth into Ignis' neck.


	10. Part A: Chapter 10

The rush that hits Ignis when Gladio claims him is unlike anything he's felt before. He claps a hand over his mouth, but he's certain Noct can hear, certain that he's already undoing whatever this afternoon has accomplished to prove that he lives above his instincts, but he can barely bring himself to care. He pants in great heaving gasps as Gladio kisses the mark he's made, and his fingers slide over Gladio's collar, seeking purchase, trying to lift it enough to make a mark of his own. He fails, and the whine that builds in his throat hardly escapes before Gladio is upon him, kissing his fingers, his palms, his wrists.

"You're doin' great," Gladio says. He brushes his lips over the knuckles of Ignis' right hand. "You're beautiful. You're perfect. I don't need a mark yet, Iggy, it's okay."

"Feels incomplete," Ignis gasps. He touches Gladio's chest, spreads his fingers over a scar that trails slantways along his torso.

"We'll fix that." Gladio helps him out of his shirt, hisses at the sight of his battered body, and pulls Ignis into another embrace. Skin to skin. Yes, Ignis knows, this is better. It's right, being so close, but the collar on Gladio's neck is solid and hideous and hateful, and Ignis can't stand to look at it. He lies in Gladio's arms, and the adrenaline and fury of the day finally drains from him, leaving him boneless and spent. Gladio holds him through it, whispering endearments, pressing his lips to Ignis' limp, ruffled hair.

He doesn't know how long they lay like that. Once or twice, Ignis tries to get up, but Gladio growls low in his throat, and Ignis laughs, and besides, what's waiting for him outside? It isn't until the room is dark that Ignis finally slips out from under Gladio's arm, pulls on his shirt, and sneaks out the door.

Noctis is a shadow on the couch, wrapped in an old comforter with his feet dangling off the edge. The television is on, but the character he's supposed to be controlling is walking headfirst into the wall, and Noct's shoulders are shaking. Ignis walks around the couch, and Noct rolls to hide his face.

"Noct."

Noct hunches over himself, and Ignis kneels next to him. "Come, now," he says, and Noct's face, when he turns, is a ruin of tears. "Oh. A moment."

"Don't." Noct grabs his wrist. "I'm sorry, I just. I don't know what I'm gonna do without you, Iggy."

He sounds so young like this, so lost, and Ignis smoothes out his hair. "I'm not going anywhere, Noctis."

"Yes, you are." Noct takes a shuddering breath. "You have to. I wrote to Luna, while you were... Busy. I'm gonna get you to Tenebrae. Both of you."

Ignis sits on his heels. 

"I can't fix this yet," Noct says. "But I can get you out of here. I can keep you safe."

"If you do intend to change things, when you're king," Ignis says, haltingly.

"I don't know," Noct says.

"Then I should assist you."

"Not like this," Noct takes Ignis' hand. "You're like a brother to me, Specs. I can't treat you like anything less."

Ignis thinks of Gladio's namesake, frozen forever in a portrait on Lily Amicitia's desk. "I feel the same, Noct. If you do need me, no matter the cause, I'll come back for you."

Noct holds Ignis' hand tight, and peers at him curiously for a minute. "Do you love him?" he asks.

"I believe so."

"Did it..." Noct's hand jerks, as though he wants to lift it, and sinks down again. "Did it hurt?"

"No." Ignis sighs. "It felt right. Though I suppose it was unnecessary, if you didn't plan on separating us in the first place."

"I don't, but I'm not legal yet," Noct says. "Dad can still go over my head. No, we need to do this, and we need to do it fast."

Ignis idly runs his thumb over Noct's hand, gaze drifting towards the hall where Gladio lies sleeping. "Then perhaps we should consider calling in a friend."

 

*

 

When the time comes, there are no tears. Noct is dry-eyed and stern when he bribes the guards around his apartment, and he gets Prompto's help with running feedback through the outdoor security cameras. He leads Ignis and Gladio out properly, just a beta taking his pets for an evening drive, and Ignis talks him through traffic on their way to the Wall. Something has changed in Noctis, more than Ignis can fully grasp, and he can only hope that it's made him strong enough to face his ascension to power alone.

They stop at a gap in the Wall, used by Kingsglaive until last year, and climb out of the car to find a truck waiting for them. Mrs. Amicitia climbs out, dressed in jeans and a billowing shirt, and she makes a beeline for Gladio and Ignis. She holds a hand to Ignis' cheek, then Gladio's, and they stand there for a minute, breathing in the sweet scent of the orchards in the distance.

"I'll see you there," she says, and her hand trembles as it slides down Gladio's jaw. Gladio takes it, kisses her knuckles, and grins at the weak, slightly hysterical laugh Lily makes. 

"Thanks, Mom," he says.

"Are we going or what?" A small, pointed face in thick sunglasses and a straw hat peeks out from the back window of the truck. Ignis raises his brows, and Lily shrugs, a little helplessly.

"She insisted," she says. "And I can't risk it if she presents late." She raises her hands to Gladio's collar. "Now. This has to go."

"On it," Noct says. He pulls a key from his armiger and twists it in a small lock at the back of Gladio's neck. The collar slithers loose, and Gladio breathes deep, running his hand over the thick line it leaves behind.

"Here," Lily says, and wraps her scarf around his neck. It clashes with his winter gear, but Gladio smiles at her as though she's single-handedly brought out the sun, and Lily has to turn aside.

Noct bumps Ignis' shoulder with his own, and Ignis bumps him back.

"I'll miss you," Noct says. 

"Be brave." Ignis hugs Noct fiercely. "I fear we both have a hard road ahead of us."

"We'll be okay," Noct says. "When it's over, if you still want your job as advisor, just give me a call. You'll know where to find me."

Ignis draws away, letting his arm slide from Noct's shoulders. Noct clasps his hand, then their fingers slip free, and Ignis turns to the truck that idles on the dirt road before them.

Iris Amicitia scoots over to let Gladio and Ignis in, and looks up at Gladio with an open, earnest gaze. "Gods, you're tall," she says. 

"Just wait til you get your first growth spurt, kid," Gladio says, and Iris smiles, a little uncertainly, and holds up her hand. Gladio takes it, and she squeezes his fingers tight. 

"Not letting go," she whispers. Gladio nods sagely and winks.

"Not on your life," he whispers back. He takes Ignis' hand on his other side, and the three of them look back to Noctis, standing alone in the glare of the headlights.

Lily climbs into the driver's seat, dashing tears from her eyes, and shakes her long hair out of her face. "Okay, kids," she says. Her eyes are bright with starlight, and her smile is wide and unguarded. "Let's go to Tenebrae."


	11. Part A: Epilogue

In a quiet village at the border of Tenebrae, a man lies dreaming.

His lanky body still has echoes of the bony angles of his youth; with slender hands, his elbows bent over the edge of his chair, long legs splayed out on the polished floor. His shoes were fine once, but they're worn thin now, and the thick scarf that drapes undone around his neck has the loose knit of an amateur. 

A shadow passes over him, blocking the lamplight. The book that lies upended on the floor is picked up and set on the side table with gentle reverence, and sandy blond bangs are brushed back from over his eyes. He frowns a little, face twisting, and his lover leans down to kiss his brow, smoothing out the lines there.

Ignis opens his eyes. 

"Long morning?" Gladio asks. Ignis lifts his glasses and rubs at his right eye, ignoring Gladio's teasing tone.

"Lily's out with her town improvement society," Ignis says. He yawns wide enough for his jaw to click. "We'll need to pick up Iris from school."

"Iggy." Gladio kisses him, soft and lingering. "I work at the school."

"Yes, which is wh--oh. Oh, hell, Gladio, give me a minute to get my bearings."

"Iris is off with her friends, anyways." Gladio kisses him again, and Ignis winds an arm around his neck, holding him there. Gladio lays a hand on the swell of Ignis' belly, and smiles into a kiss at his neck. "Enjoy your day off, Iggy. You deserve it."

"My work, Gladio, is erratic at best," Ignis says, and grabs his arm for leverage as he tries to get up out of the chair. "Sending reports to Noctis by magical dog is not how I imagined this position to pan out."

"Yeah, but I bet none of this was, either," Gladio says. His hand goes to Ignis' belly again, and Ignis sighs, laying his own hand over Gladio's. 

"No. It isn't. I thought..." Ignis looks to the window, where Lily's garden is in full bloom, but they both know that he's really searching the distant horizon, where the spires of Insomnia are hidden by miles of mountains and sea and desert. "I don't know what I thought. I figured my future would be about the same as my present, really, only older and more distinguished."

"Do you regret it? Having to leave?" 

"No." Ignis doesn't need to think about it, not with Gladio at his side, with bees humming in the garden, a small, hard-earned peace drifting over the little house. "Not for a moment."

They stand there, watching the breeze from Lucis stir the petals of Lily's garden, before Gladio steps back.

"Let's have tea outside," he says. "I have a new book I want to read to the peanut. Baby's guide to physics."

Ignis groans as Gladio goes to the kitchen, rattling cups. "I don't believe it works that way," he says.

"Sure it does. If I keep this up, we'll have a scientist on our hands."

"And if they want to go into art or poetry instead?" Ignis asks, leaning on the doorframe.

"I'll get some books on art theory, then," Gladio says. He winks, and Ignis rolls his eyes. "Just in case."

They spend most of the afternoon outdoors, drinking copious amounts of herbal tea while Gladio tries to encourage the bump in Ignis' shirt to go into science and engineering. He's halfway through the book that explains how gravity works when a soft bark makes them both look up. Lady Lunafreya's dog bounds through the freshly-mown grass, sling bouncing around his chest, and skids to a stop at Ignis' side.

Gladio sighs. "Maybe it's a paycheck this time."

Ignis scratches Umbra behind the ears and opens the sling. He ignores the red notebook, which isn't his to peruse, and pulls out a small white envelope. Umbra waits while he opens it, eyeing their leftover crumb cake with the hopeful air of all dogs the world over.

There's a long silence as Ignis reads the short note. Gladio closes his book and sits up, wrinkling the blanket beneath them.

"Iggy?" He lifts a hand to Ignis' cheek, tucking a strand of hair behind his ear. "More work?"

"No," Ignis says, folding the note in his hands. "I believe it's a summons."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And that's it for part A! Part B starts soon, taking place around the time of this epilogue.


	12. Part B: Chapter 1

The day after Prince Noctis dies, the streets of Insomnia go still. There are fewer cars in the street, and the bars open early, filled with silent, watchful people staring up at screens with somber newscasters and fuzzy tabloid shots of the Citadel gates. Those who do take to the streets do so with their heads bowed, sneaking furtive glances at their fellow passengers, whispering theories in the echoing subway tunnels.

In a small apartment on the west end of town, Prompto Argentum curls up in front of the family computer and sobs into his arms, but no one is there to hear.

And in the midst of it all, a black Crownsguard vehicle makes its slow way towards the Wall.

Noct draws his knees up in the backseat, forehead pressed to the window, and lets the city slide past him.

"What'd I die of?" he asks, after a few minutes of counting skyscrapers and high rises.

His driver doesn't answer. Noct sighs and sinks a little lower.

It's a nice day for a wake, all things considered. There's a cool spring breeze drifting over the abandoned sidewalks, stirring up trash and debris, and the sky beyond the Wall shines glaringly blue and clear. His dad commented on it before Noct was bundled into the car like a humiliating afterthought, trying to piece together whatever had broken between them with a desperate tone of voice and a hand on his shoulder.

"I only want to see you safe," he'd said. "The Citadel is no place for someone with your condition. I can only hope--"

"The Citadel is the perfect place for someone like me," Noct had said, chest aching with a twisted, bone deep hurt that he couldn't voice, couldn't touch. "Just give me a collar and put me on my knees."

Regis had only closed his eyes, briefly, and squeezed Noct's shoulder tight.

An alpha. He's nineteen, two months from putting together a team of scientists in an emergency council to discuss a new, unpublished study on omega and alpha social and mental states, and Noct's body has to go and ruin everything. It's probably the stress. Without Ignis, having to send reports back and forth in secret between Insomnia and a small house in Tenebrae, Noct's been trying to do the lion's share of the work himself. Which means less sleep. Which means skipping lunches. Which means waking up one morning with his skin on fire and the omega his dad sent to check on him, Circe, raising a trembling hand to her mouth and whispering _no, no._

He doesn't blame her for reporting it to the king. It was bound to come out, anyways--Noct knows this too well, now. He can still remember the day Ignis was revealed to be an omega in hiding, the day everything Noct knew as true and right was turned on its head, the curtain pulled back to reveal how tenuous his way of life really was.

He doesn't know how other people don't see it, now. How they can look at an omega or an alpha and only see a beast, a pet, a creature without complex sentient thought. 

But then, none of them really knew Ignis.

None of them really knew Noct.

And they never will, now that Noct is, according to the local news, dead in a training accident the night before. They'll mourn him, sure, and his dad will be pressured to make another heir, and maybe the gods, speaking through the Crystal, will say something like, _Shit, sorry about that last fuckup. Your new chosen one is... Frank, from 67th street. Nice, solid beta. No violent tendencies._

Yeah. Maybe.

And the world will move on like normal while Noct lives the rest of his life in a house in Altissia, far from where he can be an embarrassment to anyone. 

They make it through the Wall without trouble. The driver just flashes a badge at the guard, and the gate opens, revealing the broken-down trash pile that is Noct's glorious welcoming committee to the outside world. The shells of old cars lie in the dust, tipping down into what was going to be the sewer for a new extension of the city, and kids scramble over the garbage, picking out bits of scrap to sell. They watch Noct's car as it passes, but Noct knows they can't see in. Then one of them finds half a computer, and the whole group of them squeal in excitement, turning away.

"Don't try anything," the guard says, sometime around sunset, twisting around in his seat. The waters of Galdin Quay are gentle behind him, gold and purple with the kind of sunset Noct never gets to see behind the Wall. "If you bite me, I'm gonna have to muzzle you."

Why the hell, Noct thinks, would he bite someone when he has a sword in his armiger? But he doesn't say anything. Just looks away, staring out at a dock at the edge of the water, a dark line against a dazzling sea.

Regardless what his dad might've said that morning, they do collar him. For his own protection, the guard says, over and over, as though Noct's presentation leaves no room for words. Noct walks a few feet behind the guard, and sure enough, no one even looks at him. He's just another alpha, a vague shape of base instincts and unmentionable lusts on the end of a chain, waiting for orders.

He sits on the deck of the boat headed for Altissia and squints at the sun sinking over the horizon. The boat rumbles when the engines kick into gear, a low growl like a behemoth rising from the mist, and Noct swallows against the collar around his throat. 

In the end, he supposes, it's just what he deserves.


	13. Part B: Chapter 2

Noctis is thirteen when he is given a guard alpha for the first time.

"Oh my gods," he says, in a low, horrified voice. "Dad. Why."

"This is the price of freedom, son," his father says, smiling as though he has not, in fact, ruined Noct's already dismal social life forever. 

The alpha standing before him, according to the papers Noct holds in a tight-fisted grip, is supposed to be sixteen. Noct doesn't see how. He's massive: Tall and broad and staring slightly to the left of his feet, a wall of muscle that no one in school will want to cross. He doesn't speak, but Noct doesn't expect him to: Alphas rarely do, anyways. Noct looks at the collar on his neck, engraved with his own initials, and whirls on his heel.

"Great," he says. "Now I'm responsible for that, I might as well be stuck in the Citadel for the rest of my life."

"You won't hear me complaining," Regis says, and Noct storms off towards his room. The alpha stands where Noctis left him, still as stone, until Noct finally remembers him a few hours later.

Now, at nineteen, Noct walks through the front door of an Altissian townhouse. The door glows with deceptive lines of magic, and Noct reels, stricken, as the mana that courses through his bloodstream drains from him in one wrenching pull. The guard carrying his luggage glances back, but doesn't comment when Noct staggers to his knees.

"Staff will come once a week to clean and provide the supplies you need," he says, while Noct struggles to regain focus through the dizzying effect of stasis. "There's a computer in your room, but you'll be monitored. The king wants you to take weekly assessments. If you can't remember how to access the computer, let one of the staff know, and we'll find another way."

"Will Dad..." Noct sits up, but doesn't bother to rise. "Will he visit?"

The question sounds weak, and it isn't like he doesn't know the answer. He bears through the guard's awkward, roundabout way of saying I don't know, and gets up in the middle of an explanation on how the security works and where he can and cannot go, and heads up the stairs.

It's an old house, so far as Noct can tell. He can see places where stone has been covered in plaster, where entire spots of the wall have been broken down and painted over to fit AC and plumbing over the years. The wallpaper is the same kind they use in the residential wing of the Citadel, coarse and finely-woven, with stylized silhouettes of the astrals against a grey backdrop.

He wonders, briefly, how many of his ancestors have been sent into exile here. 

The guard follows him up. He'll have guards posted at the exits at all times, he says. If he wants to leave, it has to be in disguise, under guard, but of course they'll take care of him. Nothing but the best for the disgraced, once future savior of Lucis.

He takes one look at the large bedroom, furnished with thick gold hangings and sheer curtains, and clenches his hand on the doorframe.

Behind him, the guard clears his throat.

"What?" Noct says, twisting around. "I'm not allowed to be angry?"

"Easy," the guard says. His hand inches for a small black box hanging at his hip, and Noct freezes. They watch each other for a moment, then the guard steps back.

"Is there anything you need?" he asks, after the silence between them thickens into something of a wall. Noct only stares, so he retreats, edging for the stair. "Then I need to make my report. Your guards are at their stations, but if you tear shit up or cause trouble, we'll need to bring in a behavior therapist."

"You mean obedience trainer," Noct says.

The guard doesn't respond, which is answer enough. Noct steps into his room and slams the door with enough force to send a cloud of dust trickling down from the ceiling. 

Alphas are always a little too aggressive. Everyone says it, even the omegas on Noct's staff who've been slowly opening up to him over the years. They're territorial, possessive, and crass, and too many alphas in one place always leads to a fight.

Except Noct doesn't feel very territorial. He could care less what happens to this house, or even to his old apartment. And if he's possessive, it's just in little ways, the stuff that Ignis is always getting onto him about; How Noct stays up too late going through reports and briefings, how he's always taking on everybody's problems, building up the stress until he cracks under the pressure. Part of it's a way to keep busy, to stop his thoughts from drifting to the ring or his dad or the astrals, but maybe part of it's just who he is, too. Maybe it's the alpha in him, coming out in a different way.

He wishes he could've paid more attention to Gladio. He wishes he could have gone all the way back to that first day and slapped himself. He wishes he could find a way to tell Ignis and Prompto and Luna that he isn't dead. But it doesn't matter anymore. Not really. He's no one: Not a prince, not a Caelum, not even a person. Just an alpha, a shameful mistake in a proud lineage, trapped in a house that looks more like a tomb than a place to live. He lies down on the massive bed in the middle of the room, burrows under the covers, and listens to the shriek of gulls wheeling outside his window until the sky goes dark.


	14. Chapter 14

It's four in the morning, and Prompto should probably be asleep. The lights in the house have been off for over a day, save for a lamp in the kitchen that's been running nonstop ever since Prompto stepped outside, looked at his phone, and saw the news that his best friend had died in an accident in his apartment the night before. Prompto had run all the way to the apartment, all twenty-two blocks, but the Crownsguard had sectioned it off and no one was getting through, especially not some punk nineteen year old cursing out the guard on duty.

So Prompto came home.

And called his moms.

Who said, in the nicest way possible, that it really was too bad, and they'd be home as soon as they could so they can talk about it together, as a family. To take care of himself. To not do anything reckless.

Which is the mantra of Prompto's life, basically. Don't make waves. Don't draw attention. Don't cause trouble.

Well, Prompto's pretty sure he's doing a good job, now. 

He turns off the Kingsglaive MMO he and Noct started playing last month, and skims through his computer for something new. Anything. Killing digital monsters doesn't really help, but it's mindless, and mindless Prompto can definitely manage. So he boots up an old game, one he dragged Noct into when they were freshmen in high school. The tinny opening song plays in the dark bedroom, light and high, and Prompto hunches in the computer chair and waits for the screen to load.

He spawns in the private server he and Noct made for themselves, which has maybe two forests and a lake full of snake women, and the first thing he sees is...

Noctis.

Well, not Noctis, really. It's his avatar, the green orc woman he chose out of a pre-rolled lineup, complete with her basic level-ten armor. She's idling a few inches from Prompto's elf, bobbing on her feet, and Prompto clicks her.

The sign-on time pops up over her head. 0:37am. No. No, that's impossible. That was less than four hours ago. There's no reason for her to be there. Prompto clicks her again. He makes his character walk around her. He opens a chat box, holds his hands over the keyboard, and closes it again.

"It's a glitch," he tells the empty room.

Then she moves.

The orc glides in the clipping, poorly-rendered way that always drove Noct up the wall when they played together, heading right for the lake. Prompto frantically follows her, his elf gliding an inch behind, a lump building in his throat.

When the orc stops, Prompto's breath is coming out harsh and short, and his eyes burn and vision swims. A chat box opens up, and Prompto clutches the side of the computer desk.

**Princess:** _I'm not dead._

**Princess:** _Find me in Altissia._

"Dude?" Prompto whispers, as though the computer can hear him. _"Dude?"_

Then the screen flickers, and the orc freezes. Princess drops out of the chat, and the orc disappears, winking offline.

Prompto sits in front of the computer for a long, long moment, staring at the digital grasses swaying on the bank of the lake.

_I'm not dead._

_Altissia._

Prompto twists in his chair, staring back at his closet. His clothes are scattered on the floor, thrown next to his open backpack, which fell off the bed sometime last night. He glances up at his reflection in the closet mirror, red-eyed and gaunt with shadow, and pushes back against the desk.

"Right," he says. 

And when a small detachment from the Crownsguard arrives that afternoon, going through the narrow list of contacts in Noct's friend group one by one, they enter to find an empty apartment, with a simple note pinned to the fridge, the computer in the smallest bedroom wiped of all memory, and a solitary lamp flickering on the kitchen counter.

 

*

 

There's a lot to be said, Noct realizes, as his guards tear through the Altissian townhouse, grumbling to themselves, for the idea that alphas aren't the best conversationalists.

It means that when Noct is asked, repeatedly and with the growl of the guard's rapidly thinning patience, how the hell he managed to smuggle a _dog_ in his bedroom that morning, all Noct has to do is stare up at him and blink, slowly, before he gives up and stomps off. He doesn't have to explain that waking up with Umbra rolling about at the foot of his bed is normal, and that Umbra can appear and disappear wherever he damn well wants to. He doesn't have to explain how he downloaded seven torrented video games on the computer in his room, either, which is now being hauled off for a thorough examination. He just sits, and stares, and tries to remember how Gladio used to hunch his shoulders to appear stolid and uninterested.

No one questions it. It's almost funny, except Noct's pretty sure that he'll never be left alone again, not after this. The best he can hope for is that someone--Luna, Ignis, Prompto--will get his message and figure out where he's being kept. He didn't have much time for details, and it's not like he knows the address, but Altissia can't be that big.

Probably.

"You know, this means he's still aware enough to start shit," one of the guards says, leaning against the wall while the others rip apart Noct's new dressers. Another guard glares at him, and the man glances Noct's way, cocking an eyebrow. 

"Don't get comfortable," one of the others says. "The only reason you're here is because you couldn't keep your hands off that omega."

The guard's eyes narrow. He has a tattoo on one of his cheekbones, like a small crow's foot, and the braids along the side of his head hang undone on his shoulders. "Where'd you hear that one, Tredd?" he asks, in a quiet, affable tone.

"Not like you and Libertus weren't fucking, before he was found out," mutters the one called Tredd. "Fucking sick. No wonder they carted you off."

"Yeah?" The guard crosses his arms. "And what's your reason? Get out, Tredd, he isn't keeping a dog in the dresser."

Tredd glowers and walks off, flicking Noct a dirty look over his shoulder. The guard by the wall pushes off and bends down to start picking up Noct's clothes.

"Watch out for that one," he says, in a voice that rises just above a whisper. "If he thinks he can get away with it, he'll probably try and put you on a leash."

"Thanks," Noct whispers. "I'll remember." He gets up and heads over, packing his clothes in without folding them first, which makes the guard smirk a little. "Your, uh. Friend. The one Tredd mentioned. He okay?"

The guard shrugs. His face is harder to read than Gladio's, especially when he turns away, fiddling with one of Noct's shirts. "Not really."

"Oh. I'm sorry."

The guard doesn't speak, just puts away the rest of Noct's things and stands. 

"Take it easy for a bit," he says. "Captain's talking about calling someone in." Noct nods, and he nods back, his face still an expressionless mask. "You need me, I'm usually at the back door."

Noct watches him go, and lets out a long breath. He knows he should be worried, but he can't help but smile to himself. Cor Leonis, in their training sessions, always says that discordance in the ranks leads to chaos. If the guards are already breaking apart at the first crisis, then maybe escaping isn't such an impossible task.

Maybe he has a chance.

 

*

 

When the obedience trainer does arrive, the first impression Noct gets of him is a rabbit. Twitchy, wide eyes in a small face, big ears that stick out over thin blond hair, and thin lips pursed in an eternal twist of distaste. He's in a suit as well, which Noct doesn't expect: Most alpha trainers he's seen have been massive, prepared to take down a full-grown alpha if they have to. This one looks like he could tip over if you breathe on him wrong.

"Marcus," he says, when Noct stares him down from where he's making lunch in the kitchen. A ghost-pale hand extends across the kitchen counter, and Noct regards it for a moment before moving on. "Oh, alright, if you want to put on the act, I can play along."

Noct glances up again. The man's smiling. "What act?"

"The dumb alpha." Marcus leans on the counter as though sharing a private secret. "So maybe the two of us can have a conversation, hm?"

That's the last thing Noct wants, but he's spent the past few days being shadowed by quiet, disinterested guards, so he shrugs a shoulder. "If you don't mind me eating."

Marcus' smile widens. "Not at all."

So they end up sitting in the opulent living room, Noct balancing a plate of sandwiches on his knees, Marcus with a clipboard from his briefcase, surrounded by ancient tapestries and paintings of pastoral landscapes that probably don't exist anymore. Marcus clears his throat.

"Now, your highness," he says. "You, like many late-presenting alphas, are faced with a unique situation."

"Am I."

Marcus blinks his rabbity eyes. "Yes. Where many go wrong is thinking that someone who presents late will instantly go feral, reverting to the state that most naturally-born alphas and omegas are raised in."

"Or the way they're trained to be," Noct says. Again, he gets a rapid-fire blink.

"You'll trust my expertise in this, I hope," Marcus says. Noct takes an exaggeratedly large bite of his sandwich, and Marcus clears his throat. "The truth of the matter is, your highness, that until now, your brain has been functioning much like a normal beta's. It's as though you were on what some call suppressants, holding your alpha self at bay. The effects of this may last for some time. You won't truly see a change until after your first rut. This can be... confusing... for many. It makes it hard to explain to someone who has only ever seen alphas behaving in one way."

"You're being pretty reasonable," Noct says, and Marcus beams. "My friend, Ignis? When he presented, he was beaten. Don't think his obedience trainer--"

"Counselor."

"Whatever. Don't think she was half as nice as you are. How much of that's because of my dad, do you think?"

Marcus tugs at the cuffs of his shirt. "Ah. Well. As I said, late presenters are rare."

"So my friend was beaten," Noct says, slowly, "because...?"

Marcus sits a little straighter. "We're here to talk about your situation, your highness, not that of a runaway omega."

"There were bruises on his neck, too. A heavy one, like someone stepped on it." Marcus looks about ready to run for it--If Noct didn't know any better, he'd half expect his ears to prick up in alarm. "When's that gonna happen to me? You have someone waiting by the front door just in case I, what, go feral?"

"You've been described as a compassionate and level-headed young man," Marcus says, folding his hands on the clipboard. "I'm sure it won't come to that."

Noct waits, in the growing silence, for the implications of Marcus' words to sink in. "Now, when I say--"

"Yeah," Noct says. "We're done." He gets up, and Marcus stands, all desperate concern, hands clasped at his chest. 

"If you want to go out, your highness, there are rules you must know. And your rut--"

"I'll figure it out." Noct walks off, leaving the living room behind, and climbs the stairs to his new bedroom. He locks the door, which means nothing, then jams a chair under the handle. He ignores the insistent knocking, crawls into bed, and is lying there, staring at his hands, when the door finally wrenches open and his guards pile in.

Nyx, the one with the braids and the tattoo, isn't with them, but he laughs about it later when he shows up to fix the door. 

"Hell, kid," he says, lining up the hinges for the fifth time. "They're never gonna let you out."

He's almost right. What they do instead is assign him a handler, someone to pretend to be his master while he's out in the open. Tredd, predictably, is quick to volunteer. Then they dress Noct in muted colors, leaving his chest bare like most alphas, tie back his hair, and collar him.

Like Nyx said, Tredd is all too pleased to have his hand at the other end of the leash. He jerks Noct forward every time he starts to lag behind, and glances back so often to watch the leash wag against the collar that their captain nearly takes the handler title away from him. Noct follows a few steps behind, eyes on the crowd that flows around him, searching for a familiar face in the whirl of color.

No one recognizes him. Who would look for a dead prince in the eyes of a collared alpha, anyways? 

Noct spots some fishing docks that show promise, but having an alpha fish all afternoon while his master waits on him would be a dead giveaway, so he doesn't bother to ask. Instead, he gets to walk around uselessly for half an hour before he's dragged back to the townhouse, where he spends the next few days trying not to wreck the place out of sheer boredom.

It isn't until three weeks have passed, giving time for the cool breeze off the water to turn warm and stifling, when Noct stops, jerking at the tug of Tredd's fist in his lead, at the sound of someone calling his name.


	15. Chapter 15

It takes Prompto two days to blow through six years of savings, but it gets him to Altissia.

So far, Prompto can only really think of one thing that could've happened to Noct. An enemy to the crown must've staged the accident to kidnap him, where they dragged him to Altissia to... To get on a computer. Well. He'll figure that part out later, but if Noct's here, there's a good chance they have him hidden away. 

Prompto's moms told him that there's a trafficking ring in Altissia, where people slather captured betas in pheromones and sell them to the highest bidder, then run for it before the ruse is discovered. Maybe that's what's happening to Noct. So he starts at the plaza, where alphas and omegas are sold off when the market opens, and forces himself to walk through the lines, examining the people chained up on display. None of them look like Noct, but Prompto has to go and sit down afterwards, furiously scuffing the cobblestones as he does. He knows he has a soft heart. His moms say it's a virtue, but it got him into trouble in high school enough times that Prompto knows when he needs to walk away. So he turns down the residential neighborhoods instead, peeking through windows until he has to be shooed off by a bored-looking guard.

He sleeps in the alleys between canals, and picks up work at a local bar, hauling boxes and cleaning tables. He tells people that he's looking for the family omega, or his friend, or a brother, and the people of Altissia grimace and shrug and don't really offer to help.

"It's easy to disappear here," someone tells him, sometime into his second week. "If your friend don't want to be found, you're better off goin' home."

Which tells Prompto nothing. So he goes through the city piece by piece, taking it apart like an old computer, trying to figure out how it works. 

And that's how he finds Gladio and Ignis.

He doesn't mean to. He's actually searching for a new place to sleep, and is pretty sure he's found a good one in an abandoned house near the ferry. It's small, out of the way, and has a basement that serves double as a floating dock. A perfect place for a squatter to hide.

Or for a runaway omega and alpha, who are, when Prompto climbs through the front window, just sitting down for what looks like the best dinner Prompto's seen in his life.

Ignis almost kills him, which confirms a lot of suspicions Prompto's had about the guy from day one, but by the time Prompto's done literally sobbing for his life under Ignis' worn boots, Ignis and his... mate? Partner? Whatever they call each other, exchange a long, silent look.

"So he contacted you, too," says the alpha, who Prompto vaguely remembers is named Glade or Gladdy. "We've been here for a while, now. Think we might have a lead on his location."

"They walk him through the docks, sometimes," Ignis says, as though he isn't still sort of standing on Prompto. "The collar may be a problem. It looks magical."

"You've seen him?" Prompto has a hard time speaking around the thick feeling in his throat. "He's actually alive? What do you mean by collar?"

Ignis peers down at Prompto from over the rim of his glasses, and even on the floor, Prompto has a distinctive urge to straighten his shoulders and adjust his vest.

"What exactly do you know, Prompto?" he asks.

"Just that he's alive," Prompto says. "And here."

"Oh, dear," Ignis says, and finally lifts his foot. Prompto wheezes, rolling onto his side. "I believe we have quite a bit to discuss."

 

Two weeks later:

 

"Noctis."

Noct goes stiff, halting in the middle of the boardwalk, as a low, almost musical voice rolls through the chatter of the crowd. His collar tightens a little, but Noct's used to it now, and he scans the street desperately, seeking out the source of the sound.

And there, standing by a railing strung with flowers, looking for all the world like a tourist on holiday, is Ignis.

Noct feels a whine build in the back of his throat, and struggles to swallow it. Ignis is watching him, his light bangs swept over his eyes, wearing an insensible grey coerl-print shirt and dark pants. He looks softer, somehow, strangely off from Noct's memory of him, but he's here and he sees him and all Noct wants to do is run, break out of the loose circle of guards and fall into the arms that have always been there for him, always, ever since the beginning.

But then Ignis looks away, lets out a long, weary sigh, and drops to the ground.

"Oh, gods!" he shouts, and half the street turns to him as Ignis clutches at the rail, his voice shaking in what has to be the worst display of acting Noct's ever witnessed. "The baby!"

 _The baby?_ Noct thinks, as Ignis wails and clutches his stomach. _What ba--Oh._ Because sure enough, there's a telltale bump under Ignis' palm, and now that he's writhing in the open, more betas are starting to take notice.

At his side, Nyx lays a hand on Noct's shoulder.

"Hold up!" 

Noct covers his mouth with a fist as Prompto, fucking _Prompto,_ charges in wearing what must be one of Ignis' suit jackets, which flaps like a cape behind him as he kneels at Ignis' side. "This omega isn't, isn't far enough along yet to." Ignis whispers frantically in his ear. "His anatomy's fucked up! Believe me! I'm a doctor!"

They're too far away to tell, but Noct's pretty sure that Ignis is rolling his eyes.

"Oh gods," Ignis cries. "The pain!"

"The fuck is this," Tredd says, in a dull voice. Nyx is grinning, but his smile fades when Noct grips his arm tight.

"Nyx." Noct grabs onto the leash with his other hand, holding it firm against Tredd's insistent tugging. "When I get my throne back--"

"What?"

Noct braces himself as Tredd pulls again, harder this time. "I'll free him," he says. "Libertus. I'll fix it."

Nyx removes his hand from Noct's shoulder. His brows knit together, and he glances between Noct and the other guards. 

Then Noct falls back as a hand latches around his neck, and that's it. It's over. Whatever Ignis and Prompto are trying to do is pointless, because whoever has Noct now is holding him in such a strong, immovable grip that even if he had his magic on hand, Noct couldn't get away.

That's when he hears Gladio's voice.

"More trouble than you're worth," he growls, right in Noct's ear, and before Noct can react, the leash is whipped out of Tredd's hand, and Noct is being swung over his captor's shoulder. All he can see is the brown expanse of Gladio's back, his tattoo shifting and twisting, as he's hauled off through a crowd of bewildered people.

"False alarm!" he hears Prompto chirp. "Go! Go, go!"

He braces himself on Gladio's back long enough to see Prompto and Ignis taking off down a side street, but they shouldn't have to worry. Because in the boardwalk, where his guards should be gearing up to chase them down, a small fight has broken out. Nyx stands with his back set squarely between Noct and the other guards, hands raised, and when Tredd tries to duck around him, Nyx summons a pair of knives from the king's armiger and braces for impact.

It doesn't buy them much time, but it's enough.

It's enough for Noct to be unceremoniously dropped to the ground and ordered to run, for Prompto to catch up, dragging Ignis along behind him, for Noct to reach back and twine his fingers with Ignis'. It's enough for them to hop over a gondola, duck into a window, and slide down a set of rickety stairs into a basement that opens up onto the water.

"Specs," Noct gasps, as Gladio sets to untying a small, ancient gondola from the dock. "Prompto. How did you--what did you--"

"We've been searching for weeks," Ignis says, and pulls Noct into his arms. Prompto is at Noct's back, cursing and fumbling with his collar, which finally falls free with a clatter on the damp wood. "Prompto found us a few weeks ago. We--"

"Get in," Gladio says, and Noct twists around. He doesn't meet Gladio's eyes, but Gladio's looking straight at him, bold and unflinching. "You're at _my_ feet today, runt."

Noct bristles: Runt is an insult, he knows that much, having seen two alphas fly at each other just for that and a few hissed whispers of "mutt" and "pet." But Prompto has his hand on Noct's back, and Ignis is climbing into the gondola, so Noct sits at Gladio's feet and lets Prompto throw a bundle of old sheets over him, hiding him from view.

He doesn't know how long he lies there, breathing shallowly, listening to water slosh against the sides of the gondola. He can barely believe any of it's happened. Ignis and Prompto found them. Even Gladio, who has no reason to care what happens to him, is there, steering the gondola at Noct's side. If they're found, it's Gladio and Ignis who will suffer. Maybe Prompto, a little, but he won't be sold off, or castrated, or, or sent to hard labor--

"You smell like fear," Gladio says, his voice rumbling above him. "Tone it down."

Noct tries to breathe, but all he can see is Gladio and Ignis on their knees, in chains. Ignis, beaten bloody just as he had that first night Noct found out he was an omega, kept at someone's feet until he's broken.

"Shh." A hand touches his head over the sheets. Ignis' voice is soothing, firm, just the way Noct remembers it. "You're safe, Noct. We have you."

"We aren't letting you go this time," Prompto says. "They won't do that to you again."

Noct shudders, and it isn't until Ignis is shushing him, rubbing his back, that he realizes he's laughing. "They didn't even hurt me," he gasps, and then the breathless laughter gives way to something else, something bone deep and terrible. It's like a seed has taken root in Noct's chest, and Noct curls around it, breath hitching, fingers hooked into claws over his bare skin, shaking out a lifetime of fear and misery as the gondola slowly inches its way towards freedom.


	16. Chapter 16

No one could close down the docks leading out of Altissia for the sake of what they claimed to be a runaway alpha; There was work to do and tourists to ferry, and the sailors of Altissia looked at the uniforms of the Lucian guard with thinly-veiled disdain. So Noct was smuggled into a boat hauling seeds and farming equipment to Cape Caem, with Prompto nervously posing as the disgraced son of a wealthy family, bringing his alphas and omega back from a week of gambling his money away.

The only problem with that cover is when the captain looks Noct and Gladio up and down, then offers to lower the cost of the ride if he can rent Prompto's alphas for a few hours.

"Inspector wants us looking up to code," he says, as Noct and Prompto exchange quick, furtive looks. "Could use a few extra hands below."

Gladio inclines his head just a fraction of an inch, and Noct looks to Ignis, whose mouth is pinched in a hard line. He can't let Gladio do all the work, not with Ignis looking like that, so he nods as well, and Prompto tries for a helpless shrug.

"I, I guess so," he says. "They're my moms', though, so, uh, don't..."

"Won't touch em," the captain says. "They misbehave, I'll call you over." He whistles to Noct and Gladio, and Ignis stiffens, his shoulders squared as Gladio, then Noct, silently follow him below decks.

Where they're handed scrub brushes, introduced to the filthy, dust-caked floor, and left alone.

Noct reaches for one of the buckets of water, and Gladio knocks his hand away.

"Dust first, princess," he whispers, and starts pushing the dirt around with his brush, gathering spots of grey on his hands and knees. Noct cautiously follows suit, and before long, his back is aching, his arms are sore, and he and Gladio have gathered up what looks like a mountain of dirt. Gladio scoops it into a burlap sack and tips it out a small window into the ocean, and only then do they start the backbreaking work of scrubbing the floors.

Noct starts to slow down an hour later, and Gladio grabs his hand, pushing the brush harder across the floor. "Like you never worked a day in your life," he mutters.

"I never made you scrub any floors," Noct says, before he can stop himself.

"Yeah?" Gladio leans in real close, so that Noct can see the scar framing his unnerving golden eye, dark against his skin. "And what did you make me do?"

Noct was fifteen. He was fifteen, and stupid, and thought that just because he was blessed by the crystal as a kid, that meant he was pretty much untouchable. So he'd spent the better half of an afternoon trying to ditch Gladio, who lumbered behind him with the persistence of a fucking bloodhound, and ended up in one of the seedier nightclubs. Where he smiled at the wrong guy, whose boyfriend was still standing under the influence of six shots and a fuckton of rage, and Noct saw the light of the bar shine off the switchblade as it flicked open--

And Gladio was there, right in front of him, a hand pressed to Noct's chest as he placed himself between Noct and the blade.

It's his job, Cor said, when Noct hovered at the hospital door, nursing a sick twist in his stomach he couldn't quite explain. It's what he's made for.

Now, Noct looks into Gladio's eyes.

"Yeah," Gladio says, when Noct swallows around the knot of nausea in his stomach. "Yeah, I thought so."

They don't speak again. Eventually, the captain tells them that Prompto needs them, and they climb up the stairs to find Prompto and Ignis with a small bag of sandwiches they bought off a vendor on the docks. Noct sits a little ways off as Ignis goes to Gladio, frowning at the state of his knees, and can't help but think that he felt just as alone, just as apart, in the house in Altissia. There's so much he's missed. So much he fucked up before he even knew there was something to fuck up. So much he'll never be able to say, or do, or even feel.

Then Prompto walks to the rail next to him, leaning against it with his ankles crossed. He looks down at Noct, and Noct can tell that he wants to sit, but is too worried about what the captain would think to try it.

"So," Prompto says, speaking out of the corner of his mouth. "Alpha, huh?"

Noct draws up his knees. "I guess."

Prompto nods. "I can see it."

"What?" Noct's voice rises dangerously high--Both Ignis and Gladio look his way, and he struggles to keep his tone low. "How?"

"I dunno." Prompto crosses his arms tight, squeezing his hands. "You found out you were supposed to save Lucis when you were what? Five?"

"More like eight."

"Yeah. And you didn't even question it. You were like, okay, let's work my ass off every day so I can beat up the darkness, whatever that means." Prompto scuffs his foot on the deck. "And it's not like you do it for fame. I've helped you run from the tabloids enough to know that. So you did it for Lucis. Because you care. You care about everyone."

Before Noct can protest, Prompto rushes in. "Sounds like an alpha to me."

"If I cared about everyone, I would've cared about Gladio," Noct says. "Like you did. You always hated seeing him on a chain, don't pretend you didn't."

Prompto shrugs. "Yeah, but."

"It's okay, Prom," Noct says. "Thanks anyways."

Prompto touches Noct's shoulder, and Noct leans into it, closing his eyes. He sits like that for a while, long enough to startle when a hand slips around the back of his head. Ignis is at his other side, back to the rail, head tilted, a coy smile tugging at his lips.

"Trapped in your own head again," he says, and pulls Noct to his shoulder. "Can't leave you alone for a minute, can I?"

"You know I'm lost without you guys," Noct says, and even though he tries to say it in a teasing tone, it comes out flat and more than a little pathetic. Ignis ruffles his hair. "When were you gonna tell me about Ignis Jr?"

"I had a card planned and everything," Ignis sighs. "And gods, no, I wouldn't call them Junior. Do you know how many Ignis's there are in the Scientia family line?"

It's an old complaint, one Noct knows by heart. "Five and counting," he drones.

"You cannot believe me so cruel as to add a sixth," Ignis says.

"I'm rooting for Dahlia," Gladio says, sitting down at Ignis' other side. Noct casts him a wary look, but he just seems content to wrap his arm around Ignis and look up at the stars. For an instant, their fingers touch, but Gladio doesn't pull away. He sits there, the moonlight gilding his face, turning his scar into a dark line along his cheek. They all follow his gaze, watching the stars wink into view behind the scuttling clouds, and let the sounds of the sea wash over them.

That night, Noctis dreams of a murder.

He's standing in the throne room of Insomnia, on a marble floor with none of the wear or imperfections of the one Noct knows, and his hands are the wrong shape. They're bigger, somehow, rougher, just as calloused but not as careful with the state of his nails. They're also, he notes, with a twisting weight in his gut, streaked with blood.

"She shouldn't have done that," Noct says. His voice is lower, too, sick with horror. "She took a Nif into her bed, during a war council."

Noct looks down. A young woman lies sprawled in his lap, her head lolling, eyes open in shock. The blood that once spilled from her chest is still tacky, but her stained jacket is already starting to dry.

Before him, the divine messenger Gentiana stands with her hands turned out, her eyes open. "She would have been the savior of your star," she says.

"An omega?" Noct--or...not, he realizes, noting the long hair that spills over his shoulder--reels back. "The priests were right. They're nothing more than animals. You... We'll have to try again."

Gentiana looks through him, straight into the heart of the still-sleeping Noctis. "The gods will choose another when you are gone, and nothing but your tomb stands in your memory. You would not approve of this choice, but it is not your approval that should determine the fate of your star."

She kneels, and slips her hands under the body of the woman in Noct's lap.

"We will bury her in our own way," she says. "In the hills, by the sea." Noct looks down at his bloodstained hands.

When he looks up again, the boat from Altissia is rocking gently against the dock of Cape Caem, hidden by the grey light of dawn. His tongue is heavy and his mouth tastes foul, and when Noct blinks away the disorienting haze of sleep, he checks his hands. His nails are black with dirt, but they're still his, and there's no trace of blood.

Ignis and Gladio are already up, whispering to each other in hushed tones, but Prompto is out for the count. His head is propped up on Noct's shoulder, and one foot dangles dangerously off the edge of the boat. Noct jostles his shoulder, then grabs him as Prompto jerks awake.

"We're here," he says. Prompto groans.

The dock is at the base of a lighthouse, which overlooks an unused lighthouse keeper's building and a row of broken-down cars. Prompto jimmies the lock of the building first, where they find that the water still works and there's a tube of ancient toothpaste in the bathroom.

"So," Ignis says, when they're feeling halfway human again. He's finger combed his hair back, out of his eyes, and he looks different that way. Older. More careworn. "Now that we're here, we need to discuss what comes next. Gladiolus and I have been... talking."

Gladio sighs.

"And," Ignis says, in the tones of a man who has gone over this subject at length for hours, "we will be happy to lend you a place with us in Tenebrae."

"Happy, he says," Gladio mutters, and goes silent at Ignis' sharp look.

"That's nice, guys," Noct says. "Really. But I gotta get back to Insomnia."

They stare at him with varying levels of disbelief. "Dude," Prompto says. "They'll just lock you up again."

"Not this time," Noct says. He thinks of the omega in his dream, the way Gentiana seemed to be looking at him. Challenging him. "I'm gonna. Gonna get started. Claiming my birthright, I mean, like I was supposed to. I'll go to the tombs, and--"

"You're still gonna be prophecy boy?" Gladio sounds more than a little incredulous. "I thought they took that away from you."

"The gods didn't," Noct says. "And if I can... If I get the blessings of my ancestors... If I can get a hold of Dad's ring... As an alpha? What kind of statement do you think that'll make?"

"An alpha as the Crystal's chosen," Ignis says. "Well, it will get people talking, at least."

"That's the best I can do." Noct curls his hands on his knees. "I can't go into hiding and let Lucis keep... going, the way it has. I have to do something. So I'm gonna go on. You guys... Thank you, for getting me here."

"Woah," Prompto says, sitting up. "That sounds like goodbye. Who said I'm ditching you here, dude?"

"Prompto," Noct says. "It's dangerous."

"Uh, yeah." Prompto grins. "Kind of my point."

"I can't very well leave you to wander the wilderness alone, either," Ignis says.

"Yes, you can," Noct and Gladio say at the same time. They both wither under Ignis' glare. "Look, Iggy," Noct says, "I don't wanna put you or your, you know, family in trouble."

"You've done enough for this entitled brat, anyways," Gladio says.

"Wait a sec."

Gladio turns to Noct and bows from his seat with a flourish. "Sorry, oh chosen one."

"I'm doing this to change things!" Noct says. His hands tighten on his knees.

Gladio's eyes narrow. "Well, that's alright. Doesn't matter who gets hurt in the meantime."

"I'm trying not to get him hurt, Gla--"

"Don't think you can say my fucking name now that you're one of us!"

Prompto takes Noct's arm, and Noct realizes, as one would after being startled from a dream, that he's risen from his seat. Gladio's standing as well, looming over him, his teeth bared in what could almost be called a snarl.

"Enough." Ignis gets between them, a hand on Gladio's chest, another cupping Noct's face. "This clearly isn't about me."

"I'm not gonna lift a finger to protect you again," Gladio says, looking straight at Noct. "If Iggy comes, I'm coming with him. Not for you."

"That's fine," Noct says. "No one should've made you guard me in the first place." Prompto's hand slides down his arm, and suddenly all Noct feels is exhaustion, jangling against his wired nerves. "You should've been an Amicitia. We might've been, we might've known each other, then."

"I know you good enough already," Gladio says. Ignis shoots him a weighted look, and he turns away.

"Huh," Prompto says, into the long, uncomfortable silence that follows. "This is gonna be fun."


	17. Chapter 17

The first royal tomb lies in a thicket not too far from Caem, but if it weren't for Prompto, Noct doesn't think they'd have made it past the parking lot. For one thing, only betas are allowed to buy weapons. Alphas can wield them, sure, but only with a license provided by their beta, so Noct has to hastily hide away their gear in the armiger until it's needed. 

Then there's Prompto himself. He acts like a barrier between Noct and Gladio, sticking to Noct's side and showing him pictures of cats on his new camera and whistling obnoxious songs until Gladio's on the verge of snapping. He stops them every now and then to take dramatic, heavily-posed selfies, and cracks jokes that really shouldn't be funny, under the circumstances. Except they are, because Noct can see Ignis trying to hide his smile behind a hand, and even Gladio is smirking a little.

It helps take the edge off of what has become, in Noct's opinion, one of the shittiest days of his life.

He can't put his finger on why. It's just that everything he does feels wrong. He wobbles when they cross a bridge, and Ignis has to lunge forward to steady him. He nearly gets gored by a fucking evil unicorn, and Gladio laughs, which means Prompto has to grab Noct and Ignis has to fling his hands to the sky in defeat, stomping up the path himself. Which makes Noct feel worse, so he tries to catch up, but he stubs his toes on a rock and goes down.

The chosen king of light, he thinks, heaving himself up on aching arms. Taken out by a pebble.

The thicket is beautiful and vast and wild, the sort of thing that just doesn't exist in Insomnia, but Noct is too busy trying to walk in a straight line without fucking up to notice. Prompto's jokes start to fall a little thin, and he drifts towards Ignis, who wraps an arm over his shoulder.

"Buck up," he says. "Not far to go now, surely."

Noct sighs, and Ignis pats his shoulder before pulling away. There's something nice about being around Ignis at the best of times, anyways; He's grounded, even if half his plans at tactical training lessons devolved into a shrug and an order to attack. But right now, it's like he's an anchor, like just being around him lifts Noct out of the heavy, oppressive fog that seems to cling to his skin. He steps close enough to bump Ignis' side, and Ignis offers him a slight smile.

"That's enough," Gladio says. Shit. Right. They're dating, aren't they? That's, that probably means... Does it mean Ignis doesn't want him so close anymore? Noct searches Ignis' eyes, but he can't find any distress there. Still, he's new to this whole thing. Maybe there are rules, actual rules, and he's broken one now just by, oh, existing.

Figures.

"Yeah, okay," Gladio says. "We need to stop to camp. Princess, you remember to put blankets in that magic storage unit of yours?"

"Don't call him that," Prompto says.

"It's fine," Noct says. "Not like I don't deserve it. I'll get the blankets set up."

Gladio steps in, crowding into Noct's space. "Nah," he says. "Iggy and blondie here'll do it. You and me, we need to talk."

"Gladio," Ignis says, a warning in his tone.

"I'll be nice," Gladio says. Prompto rolls his eyes, but Noct notes that he only does it when Gladio isn't looking. Gladio's hand lowers onto Noct's shoulder, and Noct sinks under the weight of it.

"Come on," Gladio says. "There's a river nearby. I know you like those."

Noct hands Prompto the blankets and trudges after Gladio down the banks of a narrow river, picking his way over damp, sloping rocks flecked with moss that doesn't seem to stick long enough to spread. Gladio stops abruptly, and Noct has to slide back to avoid running into him.

"Alright," Noct says. "What's this ab--"

Gladio pushes him.

The crash of impact fades to the muted hush of the river as Noct falls back, drifting in the dark current. So this is it. It's finally happening. Gladio's getting revenge for every time he was chained up in a hall, every time Noct sent him to his room and tried to forget him, every casual joke and jab at his character. Every time he treated him as less than human.

So he's fine.

It's okay, if this is how it ends.

But then Gladio's hand is on his collar, and Noct is being pulled bodily out of the river, gasping for air and struggling against Gladio's hold. He's dragged to the bank, where he wheezes and coughs and shakes in the chill air, and Gladio stands over him with a strange, unreadable look in his eyes.

"Shit," he says. 

Noct blinks up at him from under drenched bangs. Why is Gladio still here? Why can't he just go, just take Iggy and Prompto and leave, let Noct do this on his own? Noct needs to do this alone, don't they get it, don't they know what he stands for, what he represented, what he enabled just by being a prince? Don't they--

"Ground rule," Gladio says, in a hard, short voice. "You aren't allowed to talk to Iggy anymore."

Noct's spiraling thoughts come to a sudden, grinding halt. "What?"

"You heard me."

Noct's skin prickles. Heat coils in his gut, fury rising thick enough to choke him. "I don't think that's your choice," he says.

"Doesn't matter," Gladio says.

"What doesn't matter? Iggy's opinion?" Noct swipes his hair out of his eyes and gets to his feet. "I thought you were good to him. Iggy always said you respected him."

"Yeah," Gladio says. "More than you."

Noct lurches forward, and Gladio sidesteps him easily. "He's my oldest friend," he hisses.

"And I'm the one he came to when he presented," Gladio says. "I'm the one he trusted."

"You--" Noct lunges again, and Gladio holds him by the arms, locking him in place. There's an odd sound to the air, a low rumbling, like an engine starting up. It takes Noct a moment to realize it's him.

"Damn," Gladio says. "Only you would turn a rut into a fucking self-loathing session."

Noct struggles to think through the indignation and shock. "Rut?"

"Yeah. I could smell it on you." Gladio doesn't let go. "Iggy's still new, but I bet he'd be able to tell by the end of the night. You were ten minutes away from doing something stupid."

"Like pushing someone in the river," Noct snarls.

"Yeah, well. Had to make sure. You know I didn't mean what I said about Ignis. He makes his own choices. I just had to rile you up, knock you out of whatever bullshit you're up to this time."

Noct opens his mouth to protest, and slumps. "I hate this," he says. "I thought ruts were supposed to be, I don't know..."

"Nonstop fucking?" Gladio says. "Sure, it takes some people that way. Or it makes them want to get tossed down a waterfall, apparently."

He finally lets go, and Noct rubs the back of his neck. "I, Gl--I feel like I need to say--"

"If it's sorry, save it," Gladio says. "That means I gotta say I forgive you just to be polite, and no one has time for that shit. Let's go back."

Noct tugs off his boots one at a time, and carries them by the laces as they mince back over the rocks. "Uh. Thanks. For, for back there," he says. 

Gladio grunts. "Didn't do it for you," he says.

"And for..." Noct traces a line down his own cheek, mirroring Gladio's scar. Gladio looks at him sidelong, then turns back to the camp. "I'll pay you back for it, one day. For all of it."

"Get crowned first," Gladio says, climbing onto the haven. He doesn't stop to offer Noct a hand, so Noct has to scramble up on his own. "Then we'll see."

Noct finally rolls onto the haven, dripping a puddle of ice water onto the runes. Prompto cries out, fumbling with the campfire, and Ignis gets to his feet.

"What the hell did you do?" he asks Gladio, hurrying to Noct's side with one of the spare blankets. Gladio kicks off his own boots and goes to the fire.

"Taught him the facts of life," he says, and Noct, lying on his back on the cold stone, covers his face with a hand and laughs.

The rest of the week passes in a fog, but not entirely due to Noct's rut. He starts coughing halfway through the first night, is hacking up mucus by morning, and when Prompto checks his forehead after Noct blearily tries to make coffee, the verdict is clear: Noct's new, up close encounter with the river has given him a full-blown cold.

He spends most of it trying to avoid Ignis, who eventually pushes him to the ground by the fire and orders him, in a voice teetering on the edge of Ignis' eternal patience, to stop treating him like a delicate flower and eat his soup. So he does. While trying to hide the fact that, well, Ignis' firm grip on his shoulder and stern tone might have stirred something deep within the miserable, aching, snot-drenched recesses of Noct's body. So he bunches up the blankets in his lap and wonders if he can get away with crawling into a hole somewhere to die before anyone notices.

"How's your first rut going?" Prompto asks, plopping down next to him with perverse cheeriness. Noct turns slowly, blinking at him through red-rimmed, feverish eyes, and Prompto nods at Gladio. "Big guy filled us in. So. What's it like?"

"Covered in snot," Noct rasps, and Prompto laughs, unaffected by the sheer force of Noct's self-pity. "And miserable. And kind of turned on, I guess, but the snot takes precedence."

"I heard of some people having to tie their alphas up during a rut," Prompto says, and there's a challenge in his voice, a question he doesn't have the courage to ask.

Noct answers it. "Not gonna attack anyone, Prom." He forces down another spoonful of soup. Gods alone know how Ignis got a hold of potatoes in the wilderness. "It's more like, I dunno, being on edge all the time. Feeling off."

"Doesn't help that people use pheromones," Gladio points out from across the fire. Noct and Prompto look up. "They think if they put omega pheromones in the room with an alpha in rut, it'll calm us down. Except you can smell an omega, right, but you don't see them, so you're freaking out because your body's sayin' that means the omega's in danger." 

Noct tries to remember if he used a pheromone diffuser with Gladio. He doesn't think so. But then, the Citadel staff had mostly dealt with that, since Noct was too young...

"They mostly just sedated me, though," Gladio says, which makes Noct feel, if anything, worse. "First rut I was actually there for was after we, uh. Left for Tenebrae."

"And you cried for two days straight," Ignis says, with a faint smile, "because the blankets were so soft and you wanted to protect them."

"Iggy, I love you," Gladio says, as Noct grins and Prompto covers his mouth, "but let a man have his pride."

Noct starts feeling more like himself and less like a sack of sloshing fluids after a few days, and while he makes potions out of the coffee he stole from the lighthouse for the guys so they don't catch anything, he can tell they're relieved when the fever breaks and his coughing fits stop coming. They finally leave the haven, a little grungy and shaky but otherwise fine, and weave their way to the tomb. It's just the way the pictures back home depict it, and Noct climbs up the steps and across the platform to an iron door.

Which doesn't budge.

"Oh, shit," he says, and jerks the handle again. "Shit. Guys, it's locked."

"You're kidding," Gladio says.

"I... may recall Cor mentioning a key, now that I think of it," Ignis says, from where he's leaning against the wall, idly massaging his right ankle. Noct groans.

"Wait." Prompto shoves Noct gently aside, crouching to stare at the door handle. "You guys remember who got the collar off Noct, right? I got this."

"Why?" Noct asks. "How?" Prompto flushes in pink patches up his neck.

"Thought it'd impress girls," he says. "And hey, it did once. Remember June, from third period Biology?"

"The one with a crush on the PE teacher?" Noct sputters. "Really?"

Prompto shrugs and pulls out some strips of bent and flattened metal. "Don't judge, dude. I didn't see you getting with anyone."

"Because I'm the prince," Noct says. But Prompto's already tuned him out, twisting and shoving at the lock with two of those weird strips, tongue clenched between his teeth. It takes a while, but when Prompto finally curses and the lock clicks, Noct wraps his arm around Prompto's neck and drags him close.

"I don't know about June," he says, "but I'm impressed."

"Thanks, buddy," Prompto whispers, his face turning pinker by the second. Noct releases him and shoves the tomb door open, releasing the scent of old stone and mildew. Darkness greets him, broken by scattered bits of light on carved stone, and Noctis steps inside. 

The king on the tomb coffin doesn't look like anyone Noct recognizes from history lessons; The kings and queens of Lucis are buried almost in disguise, to prevent robbers from tracking them down. The scepter in their hands is familiar enough, though, and Noct lifts a hand over it, looking back over his shoulder at Gladio, Prompto, and Ignis. Prompto is holding up his phone, the light of the phone camera washing over Noct's face.

"Alright," Noct says. "Let's see if the old kings'll let an alpha be the chosen one."

He turns back to the coffin and clenches his fist. Light bursts before him, a spectral version of the scepter floating in the musty air of the tomb. Then it angles towards him, and a blast of ice seems to stab through Noct's body, sending him staggering back. 

He turns around, squinting into the light, and summons the scepter. It falls into his hand with a solid thump.

"Score one for the alpha," he says, and sends it back to the armiger. "You guys up for more?"


	18. Chapter 18

The four of them emerge from the thicket the next day, looking like they've spent two years scrubbing dirt into their pores. Ignis is flagging behind, stubbornly refusing to acknowledge the looks of concern and suggestions to take it slow, but when they finally get to the road, he makes a beeline for the hotel on the other side.

"Do we have enough?" Noct asks as they trot after him. Ignis makes a noncommittal noise in the back of his throat.

"I need a bath," he says. "And clean clothes. And someone else to cook dinner, because I don't believe I can stand the smell any longer. Or the spice. Or the heat, or this blasted bug-infested excuse for a forest, or--"

"Woah," Noct says. "Easy, Specs."

"And my spectacles!" Ignis lifts the offending glasses. "I can't see a damn thing through all this dust!"

Gladio intercepts him, gingerly taking the glasses before Ignis can hurl them to the ground in disgust. He places a hand on Ignis' back and kisses his neck, whispering urgently in his ear. 

And that's when Noct realizes it. Ignis' scent is changing. He never really thought about scent before, as a beta; Other betas were so muted, and he could only detect alphas or omegas if he was in the same room with one. But now, Noctis risks a sniff, and he can tell; There's a sweetness to the air, faint and earthy, tinged with something that makes Noct step forward and sniff again. He thinks it's coming from Ignis, but he can't be sure. He drifts closer, and stops when Gladio's hand connects with his chest. 

"Close enough," he says, and Noct's lips part involuntarily. The scent is coming from Gladio. But he doesn't have time to figure out what it could mean, because Prompto has just traded a pile of rough stones they wrenched from a rock in the thicket for a few hundred gil, and they finally have a hotel room for the night.

There's only one bed, of course, because everyone knows alphas and omegas sleep on the floor, but they all glance at each other as Ignis retreats to the bathroom and silently decide that he'll get the honor of a real mattress. Noct and Prompto wrestle with making beds out of couch cushions and chair pillows while Gladio digs through the kitchenette for supplies.

"One of us'll have to do laundry," he says. "And we'll need a collar for Noctis. Me and Ignis, we brought two for ourselves in case we got any suspicious looks in Altissia, but the runt here..."

"Really?" Noct says. "This again?"

"Skinniest alpha I ever saw," Gladio says, in a calm, level tone.

"Hey. I got muscle."

"Yeah? Where?"

"Excuse me." The door to the bathroom opens, and Ignis cranes halfway out, leaning on the frame. "Who, out of the four of us, received a comprehensive education in the nature and application of most known poisons?"

"You," Noct says, at the same time as Gladio. They glance at each other, and Gladio quickly looks away.

"And who," Ignis says, in a voice dropping from chilly to downright glacial, "was trained in stealth combat by the best fighters in modern Lucian history?"

"You?" Prompto guesses.

"Yes," Ignis says. "And who just got back from a trek through the woods with a goddamn baby kicking a dent in his bladder?"

Gladio rubs the back of his neck. Noct avoids Prompto's gaze, which is becoming more amused by the second.

"So if we insist on having a glorified pissing contest here and now, who do you think is most likely to win?"

"Ignis, definitely," Prompto says.

Ignis nods. "You, I like," he says, and pops back into the bathroom. The door slams behind him, and Gladio sighs.

"He'll feel better once he's able to drink caffeine again," he says.

"Oh, shit." Noct looks at Gladio with horror. "He's off Ebony?"

"Not good for the baby," Gladio says.

"I'm amazed he hasn't killed us."

"Indeed," Ignis calls from the bathroom. "So am I."

When dinner is cooked, Ignis has boiled himself to satisfaction, and the others have scrubbed down in rapidly cooling water, they all perch on cushions and chairs for a game of poker. Prompto keeps losing because he can't keep a straight face, Gladio is impossible to read, and Ignis and Noct are always seeing through each other's bluffs. But it's nice. For once, they aren't running or fighting each other. No one's monitoring them, prepared to send in guards the moment Noct throws down his cards or Gladio pushes Prompto's shoulder. Prompto is sneaking a video of them on his phone, and when the camera turns his way, Noct can't hold back a nervous smile.

He watches Gladio sprawl out next to Ignis, whispering to his belly while Ignis laughs and cards his fingers through Gladio's hair. Prompto lays his head on Noct's knees and his feet on Gladio's lap, and takes dramatic selfies that has Noct rolling his eyes. Outside, a soft rain begins to fall, and it's as though the four of them live in their own, self-contained world, far from the influence of obedience trainers and owners and people who would look at their group and only see one person among them.

He wants this.

It seems odd, really. The first time the world came undone, Noct was seventeen and Ignis had been dragged to his room, collared and beaten. Then he was nineteen and watching the city prepare for his own funeral. Nothing so dramatic is happening now, but he can feel the same shift, the same understanding that something fundamental has changed.

Ignis blinks slow, as though rousing himself from sleep, and ruffles Gladio's hair. "Darling," he says. "I know you love me. No need to lay the scent on so thick."

"'S not all me," Gladio says, and the two of them look to Noct, who raises an arm to sniff himself. He can't detect a thing.

"You're letting off a scent?" Prompto asks. He sits up and shoves his face in Noct's neck, which sends shivers down his spine. Prompto lets out an exaggerated sniff, and Noct shoves at his face with both hands.

"Holy shit, man," Prompto crows. "You do smell."

"Wow, thanks."

"It's like..." Prompto grins. "Dude. It's sugar. And bread. You smell like a donut store."

"What? No." 

"Yes!" Prompto cackles and shoves Noct to the ground, where they wrestle and kick at each other in a tangle of gangly limbs. "You, Noct, are an actual, literal cinnamon roll."

Noct groans, but when he looks up through the headlock Prompto's attempting, he can see Gladio and Ignis watching him. 

"It isn't true, Specs," he says. "Tell me it isn't true."

"I'm afraid so," Ignis says, smirking like the traitor he is.

"Congratulations," Gladio says. "You're a real boy now."

There's something else they want to say, something Noct probably needs to say himself, but then Prompto kicks the impromptu card table over and chaos descends. When they finally clear up the mess and settle, panting, into the misshapen lumps that are their beds, the moment has already passed.


	19. Chapter 19

"No," Ignis says, staring up at the high, jagged peak of Mt. Ravatogh. It belches black smoke in the air, which dissipates into a grimy fog that hangs about the mountaintop, and Noct can already feel the grit sinking into his skin. 

"I'm gonna have to agree with Ignis," Prompto says. He leans on the rusted, beat-up van that the four of them managed to bring back to life long enough to putter across the bridge, and turns on his camera. Noct raises a hand to block his face, but Prompto just moves it to Gladio, who flashes a quick thumbs-up.

"Well, I'm going," Noct says. "If the tomb's really up there, I have to. But you're right, Specs. It looks like kind of a climb."

"I can't risk a fall at this juncture," Ignis says. "I'm sorry."

"Iggy can't stay here alone," Gladio says. "Prompto, you're gonna have to stay."

"Wait, what?"

"If it's just Gladio and I, we'll be treated as runaways," Ignis says. "We need a beta to keep our cover."

Prompto goes quiet, and Noct tries to figure how long it'll take to climb up the side of the mountain. Finally, he sighs and shoves his hands in his pockets. "Guess that's it, then," he says. "I'll see you guys."

"Not so fast," Gladio says, peeling away from Ignis' side. "I'm comin' with you."

Noct says nothing to belie his surprise; He just steps back, trying to look anywhere but at his oldest friend and his former alpha guard as they kiss goodbye. Ignis' fingers slip under the loose fake collar at Gladio's neck, and Gladio shivers. 

"Come back alive," Ignis says. "Both of you."

Prompto looks from Ignis to Noct, shoulders slumped. "Well, shit," he says. "I can't compete with that. Knock em dead, buddy." He slaps Noct's ass, and weaves out of the way before Noct can lightly slap the back of his head. 

"Real romantic," Noct shouts as Prompto backs off. Prompto laughs, looping an arm in Ignis', and holds up his camera to film Noct and Gladio as they turn to the mountain. It towers above them, a smudge against the blue sky, and Noct catches the flicker of wings as a creature rises on a current of warm air near the peak.

He and Gladio walk in silence at first, skirting a loose circle of stones where a flock of monsters flap lazily in the midday heat. For once, Noct is thankful for the tendency of alphas to go shirtless, even though he still plans on throwing one on as soon as they find a place to stop. He's never felt more aware of himself like this, more open. The sweat that trickles down the scar at his back is a constant reminder, and he finds himself staring at the tattoo rippling over Gladio's shoulders.

"Should be around the side of the mountain," Noct says, and Gladio grunts. When he lifts an arm, the feathers over his bicep twist, and Noct can see the gleam of a faint scar running through them.

"When this is over," Noct says.

"Shut it." Gladio heaves himself over a flat stone, which juts out from a steep, sleek slope of rock that goes up at least twenty feet before breaking up into coarse sand. 

Gladio climbs it easily--The man has the stamina of a fucking god--but Noct keeps sliding backwards, shoving himself forward in fits and starts. Gladio watches him as he does, amber eyes half lidded, arm draped over a rock for balance.

On Noct's third attempt to the halfway marker, Gladio sighs.

"No," Noct grits out. His nails are broken, his knees bloody with the effort of hanging on, and he struggles for breath, panting loud enough for Gladio to hear. He's been trained most of his life for combat. He can do this. It's just a rock, just a strip of the mountain, just a few more feet...

Sand rolls down the slope as Gladio slowly descends, easing himself down bit by bit until he's standing on the ledge next to Noct. He weaves his fingers together and holds his hands out. "Up," he says.

Noct places a foot in Gladio's hands, and Gladio boosts him up, halfway to the rock that marks a safe haven from the slope. Noct scrambles up to it, clawing at the stone, and pauses a minute to breathe before he hauls his aching feet up the next two yards to the sand. He just makes it, his shoes slipping on the edge, and he lies there as Gladio climbs back up.

"Sorry," Noct says.

"For what?" Gladio jerks his head. "Come on, thought I saw a spot to camp up ahead."

Noct staggers behind Gladio, spreading dirt over his forehead with his arm, and nearly falls face-first into a flock of drakes.

"Fuck," Gladio whispers, and drags Noct behind a pile of boulders.

"It's alright." Noct says. "I've got a fire spell that should knock em out."

"Fire? This place is made of fire. Try ice."

Noct searches his armiger for the right flask, then passes it to Gladio, who peers into it with a critical eye.

"Alphas and omegas ain't allowed to touch magic," Gladio says, after a minute.

"So?" Noct hunkers down on his ankles. "We aren't allowed to be running around on our own, either."

"We," Gladio says, but there isn't spite in his voice. He just looks at Noct, his face lit by the blue glow of the spell, and turns to lob the flask at the drakes. They shriek and chatter, collapsing to the earth with sickening thuds, and Noct shrinks back at the crack of bone and sinew.

"Cold-blooded," Gladio says. "Good to know. Come on, let's go before they get up."

They race for the opposite ledge, which proves to be its own, horrible trial. Gladio nearly drags Noct up, a hand on his collar, another grasping for jutting rock on the cliffside. When they reach the top, Noct rolls onto the comforting curl of protective runes and presses his face to the stone.

Gladio sits by the dead fire with a moan of exhaustion, and unhooks his cheap collar. It falls away, and Noct spots a small set of scars under his jaw, like a half moon. Gladio runs a hand over it and closes his eyes.

"Is that..." Gladio looks his way, and Noct sits up. "A mating mark?"

"We call it a claim," Gladio says. "And yeah. It's from Ignis."

Noct lifts a hand to his own neck, loosening his collar. "The m--claiming. Does it change you?" he asks. 

"Maybe." Gladio stretches his legs. "It's easier to tell what Iggy's feeling. Makes ruts and heats better, too, if we're both there for it. It's hell to be away from each other for too long, though."

"Are scents stronger, too? Or is that just an alpha thing?"

"Starting to figure it out, huh?" Gladio says. "Yeah, it's an alpha thing. And an omega thing. You can pick out emotions, kind of, if you're good enough. Take you, for example. You're probably the most territorial alpha I've ever met."

"What?" Noct blinks. "How?"

"Maybe it's part of being prophecy boy," Gladio says, "but you've got a protective streak a mile wide. It's like you're responsible for every fucking blade of grass. Funny. I always thought you were pretty unfeeling, so far as betas go, but now? You're kind of a mess."

"Thanks." Noct gives Gladio a dull stare, and Gladio smirks.

"Alright, c'mere," he says. He holds out a hand. Noct keeps staring, and his grin widens. "This is gonna sound weird as fuck, but smell my wrist."

Noct snorts. "Yeah, you're right. This is weird as fuck."

"Try it anyways."

Noct scoots forward, and gently takes Gladio's hand, watching him for a reaction. He leans down and gives him a cursory sniff, and, yeah, okay, he can smell sweat and salt and dirt. Just what he expected. Except. Except maybe there's something else, like the scent of a deep pool on a rainy day. Noct sniffs again, and rubs at Gladio's wrist with a thumb, trying to lock it down.

"It's easier to tell by the neck," Gladio says, "but everyone knows that. What you can sense now is me, since I'm too worn-out to feel much of anything right now. Try to memorize it. That way, when you're bein' a dumbass, you'll know when I'm getting pissed."

"Pretty sure I can figure that out anyways," Noct says, and Gladio shrugs. His scent changes just a little, as though a breeze has passed over the pool, bringing with it the hint of green growth.

"Hey," Noct says. "I think you kind of like me."

"Right."

"No." Noct lets go of Gladio's hand. "No, I'm right. You don't think I'm completely annoying anymore."

"More like eighty percent."

"That's down by twenty," Noct says, and Gladio shifts away from him. "Face it, I'm growing on you."

"Like a boil."

Noct just shakes his head, and Gladio, his scent radiating amusement rather than scorn, gets up and goes to find kindling for the fire.


	20. Chapter 20

The woman who stands at the edge of the haven tilts her head, dark hair spilling off her shoulder in loose, tangled curls. 

Noctis is dreaming. He has to be. There's no reason for this woman, the omega of his last, unsettling vision, to be standing quietly before the smoldering campfire. When she breathes, blood blooms from the wound in her chest, but she doesn't appear to be in pain. She just waits, smiling faintly, hands clasped behind her back.

"Hello, grandson," she says.

Noct sits up. Blankets slither off his lap as he stands, and the stone is cool under his bare feet. "That's impossible."

"Technicalities," the woman says. "I'm your great-great... Oh, don't make me count. Suffice to say that I haven't seen the sun rise in a very long time. Come."

She turns, and drops off the edge of the cliff. Noct scrambles forward, and looks down into a wide, cavernous bowl scraped out of the mountainside. Well, it's only a dream. He climbs down slowly all the same, marveling at the way the stone grinds against his heels on the way down. 

When he stumbles to his feet, his ancestor smiles.

"I was chosen by the Crystal when I was thirteen," she says. Her voice has an odd, distant quality to it, as though she's speaking in an empty hall. "The day of my presentation as an omega. My father held a ball for me, but my brother was... Less than pleased."

"Was he the one who--"

"Killed me? Yes." She speaks lightly, as though the blood that stains her clothes isn't now trickling down her shirtfront. "But that was years later. He seemed to think that no one could rule Lucis if they were ruled by their own instincts."

She walks on. Noct follows her, shivering, the chill of the night overpowering the waves of heat that rise from the stones at his back. The path before them winds and twists, one side facing the empty air, but Noct stays behind her, unwilling to walk at her side.

"You'll have to find me," the woman says. "Before this is over."

The tomb appears slowly, etched into the side of the cliff. She stops and turns towards Noctis, her hands folded. When she opens them, a heavy black key lies in her palms. 

"This is my brother's tomb," she says. "Take his weapon. It will be a useful tool against the dark."

Noct reaches out and takes the key from her hands.

"Noct!"

He nearly drops the key at the sound of Gladio's voice, booming behind him off the high cliffs of the mountain. Noct twists around, and can see Gladio carefully skirting the edge of the path, a hand on the wall, pointedly not looking down.

"I've been calling," he says. "The hell are you doing out here? You didn't even put on your goddamn shoes."

Noct looks down at his bare feet. "I was--" he glances over his shoulder, but his ancestor is gone. "Dreaming."

"With your eyes open?" Gladio shouts. He finally reaches him, laying a hand on Noct's shoulder. His fingers are trembling slightly, and his lips are pinched tight.

"Worried about me?" Noct asks. There's a sickly sweet scent on the air, like flowers left in a vase for too long, and it seems to be coming from Gladio. "You are."

"I'm cursed," Gladio says, and pushes Noct against the cliff wall, putting more space between him and the edge. "Other alphas? They end up digging ditches or looking after older betas for the rest of their lives. Me? Me, I got a garden, a family, a nice house, and a job teaching kids sight words. And my lover knows seven ways to kill people, and the prince turns out to be some scrawny alpha with a death wish--"

"I said I was sleeping--"

"I don't get it," Gladio says. He's so close that Noct can see specks of brown in his golden eyes, even in the dark of the cliffside. His voice is surprisingly soft, subdued. "None of this works the way it's supposed to. Not since Ignis."

"I know," Noct says. "Kind of happened like that for me, too."

"Must be somethin' in the water," Gladio says. His hand remains on Noct's shoulder, a reassuring warmth on his skin. "So. Tell me about this dream."

Noct tries. It comes out disjointed and uncertain, made ridiculous by the nearness of Gladio, the cold bite of the air, the reality of Noct standing barefoot on a cliffside. But the key in his hand is heavy and real, and when Gladio urges Noct to give it a try, it clicks in the lock of the tomb like it was made for it.

The door falls open before them, and Gladio takes a sharp breath.

"Alright," he whispers. "Definitely cursed."

"Sorry, Gladio," Noct says, as he approaches the casket of his ancestor's killer. "I have a feeling the weird shit's only getting started."

*

Prompto and Ignis are waiting for them in a nearby caravan when they finally make it back down the mountain. Noct's hands have heat blisters bubbling on his fingers, and he crawls into the shower while Gladio turns on the tap in the sink.

"Prince Charming here has a mace, now," Gladio says, when Ignis struggles to rise. "Dumbass tried to block himself when it turned on him, and it went right through his hands."

"That king was an asshole anyway," Noct groans. He hasn't even taken off his clothes. He just lies in the shower, feet propped on the wall, head on the floor, while lukewarm water makes mud puddles on the tile. Ignis is scrubbing the back of Gladio's neck with a washcloth, which is both kind of disgustingly sweet and horribly unfair, because _Gladio_ didn't get stabbed through the chest by a spectral weapon after following a ghost of a dying would-be queen.

"Doin' okay, buddy?" Prompto asks, staring down at Noct's filthy, ash-streaked face.

"Send help," Noct croaks. Prompto just nudges his head with a boot, and Noct rolls into the shower, struggling to push down his sodden clothes.

He's still washing shampoo from his hair when he hears barking at the door.

"Umbra," he says, and skids out of the bathroom. Ignis gives him a long, slow stare, Gladio grins, and Prompto holds up his hands as though warding off a daemon.

"Thought alphas were supposed to be bigger," Prompto says, and Noct flips him off as he trudges for the bag of laundry. Umbra's scrabbling at the door now, and Ignis lets him in just as Noct is buttoning up a new pair of jeans.

Umbra prances in place for a moment, tapping his paws in a dance that Noct has long learned means that he's starving, _starving,_ and Noct summons a bag of treats from the armiger. Umbra gratefully inhales a handful while Noct eases out Luna's notebook from his sling.

"So," Prompto says. "This is just... normal?"

"Nothing's normal with these guys," Gladio mutters, and Prompto shoots him a look of fellow-feeling. Noct, however, can't seem to push himself to his feet. He reads Luna's latest message one more time, trying to make sense of it, rephrasing and arranging the letters to find some sort of hidden code.

"What's wrong, Noct?" Ignis asks.

Noct clears his throat. "It's Luna," he croaks. "She's left Tenebrae. For Lucis." He looks at Ignis, whose slack expression is a mirror of his own. "She's gonna confront my dad."


	21. Chapter 21

It used to be easy for Prompto to forget Noct was a prince.

For a while, Noct never talked about the part of his life that centered on Council meetings, the slow deterioration of his father's health, the pressure of the war, late night briefings, and the occasional radio interview. He would show up at Prompto's side after school with the quiet, casual indifference that made other people wary and uncertain, but to Prompto showed a yearning for something normal, something to hold up as a bulwark against the encroaching tide of his life to come.

Then Ignis turned out to be an omega, and suddenly, Noct was setting the controller down in the middle of a match, looking to Prompto, and saying things like, _So I'm working on this new bill, and half the Council isn't talking to me anymore._ They were always Ignis problems, every one of them, but Prompto would look at the bags under Noct's eyes and the jittery drumming of his fingers and twist around, their game night forgotten. The walls Noct had built between his _Prompto_ self and his Citadel self were starting to crumble, and it wasn't until his so-called death that Prompto began to wonder just how much had been lost.

Now, he sits in the passenger's seat of the shitty van they're trying to drag halfway across the country, watching Noct as he clenches his hands on the steering wheel.

"Politically, it's a disaster," Noct says, for what seems like the tenth time. "I don't know what's worse; People taking it as a declaration from Tenebrae or from Niflheim. Either way, for someone from another country to claim that Dad's faked my death--"

"Even if it's true?" Prompto asks, and Noct glances at him lightning fast before focusing back on the road. "I mean, she's your friend. I'd be pissed, too."

"It's not just that," Noct says. "You can't let your personal feelings get in the way, Prom. That's what caused this whole mess in the first place."

"You getting exiled?"

"No." The van shudders over a pothole, and Noct curses under his breath. "The whole system we're working under. I think it's tied up in those dreams I've been having, of that old king who killed his sister. It sounds like anti-alpha and omega bullshit was already starting, but when you have a king ordained by the gods who says that yeah, you're right, they _are_ animals, it'd be a hell of a lot easier to justify."

Prompto pulls out his phone, and Noct sighs. "Is this the time?"

"I think so." Prompto can feel the stirring of a thought in the back of his mind, building up in a whirl of anxiety and excitement, and lifts the phone to get Noct's face in his camera sights. "I'm gonna need you to say all that again, buddy. For the record."

 

It takes Prompto all night to make the video. Noct can hear him muttering to himself outside the van, where he's sitting illuminated in the daemon-warding floodlights of a convenience store parking lot. His blond hair looks almost blue, his skin washed out and pale, and it strikes Noct how out of all of them, Prompto's always been a little... Off. His northern Tenebraean complexion set him apart in school, sure, but it was making friends with Noct that really wedged him in that odd, in-between place, never able to venture too far into Noct's world, but no longer truly a commoner, either. Prompto's life has been about straddling that balance for so long that sometimes, Noct forgets how much he sees. How much he _knows._

Prompto looks up when Noct climbs out of the van, dragging a blanket with him. "Can't sleep?"

"Hardly ever, these days," Noct says, and Prompto grimaces at the weak joke. He settles next to him, drawing the blanket over their knees. "How's it going?"

"Eh." Prompto shifts when Noct lays against him, propping a chin on his shoulder. "Ask me again in a few hours."

He doesn't. Noct drifts off a few minutes later, still draped over Prompto, listening to the squeak and shuffle of videos on Prompto's phone. 

Dawn has broken when Noct finally wakes, and Prompto is passed out with his head tilted on Noct's, his phone lying abandoned on his lap. Noct unplugs it from the portable charger, which is already in desperate need of juice, and pulls up the video.

It starts with a clip of Noct from a few months back, looking up at Prompto from a book. "Cut it out," he says, and Prompto laughs off-camera. With a little goading, Prompto convinces Noct to make what has to be the most awkward, contrived pose ever invented, and Noct grins. The camera closes up on his face, and Noct rolls his eyes.

Then it cuts to Noct again, shirtless and breathing heavily as he climbs out of the gondola. Ignis takes his hand, and he holds onto him tight, like a lifeline in a hurricane.

The other clips are much the same: Shots of Noct telling the guys about his exile, him and Ignis comparing their experiences with obedience trainers, Gladio having to get up halfway through to pace the room. There are moments Prompto captured when Noct's just groaning at one of Ignis' puns, or Ignis and Gladio are arguing over their favorite authors, or Noct is smiling at Prompto with a curious, fond expression before telling him to _put that shit away, man._

It's strange, really, how many times the camera catches them looking at each other. Laughing. Whispering. Hands clasped, chin on shoulder, foreheads touching, the brush of fingers on skin. There's even a moment when Noct's sitting by himself, clearly working himself into a spiral again, when Gladio appears behind him, raises a hand as though to take his shoulder, and retreats. 

There's the first tomb, the bright flash of magic, Noct's voice on the screen. _Score one for the alpha._ Noct sets the phone down when the video closes out, and sees Prompto staring at him through sleepless, red-rimmed eyes.

"What d'you think?" Prompto mumbles.

"I think it might work," Noct says. "It's a hell of a way to tell the world I'm alive, anyways."

"It's like you said," Prompto says. He yawns, stretching his legs, and rubs his neck. "If the guy ordained by the gods says it, it's gotta be true. Maybe this'll do something."

"Maybe," Noct says. He lets his hand drop to Prompto's arm, and Prompto smiles at him, still blinking away exhaustion. The others are asleep in the van, but Noct thinks of the video, of the lingering glances, the touches, the careful dance they've led around each other as their journey drags on. He thinks of Gladio calling him possessive and territorial, and he wonders if he might be right. Because whatever this is, whatever Noct keeps seeing in the video, he can feel it sinking into his bones, becoming a part of him. He locks his gaze onto Prompto's, and sits up a little straighter.

"Prompto," he says. "I... Thanks. For what you're doing. For what you're all doing."

Prompto's smile is lopsided. "Sure thing, cinnamon roll."

"What?"

"You're doing that thing again," Prompto says. "With your scent." He leans close, and Noct holds his breath. "You know what it means yet?"

"Think so," Noct says. He lifts a hand to Prompto's neck, and Prompto closes the distance between them. Prompto's lips are dry and chapped, and their noses mash together before they can find the right angle, but when Noct pulls away, he can feel himself smiling wider than he has in months.

"Right," Prompto says, grinning. "I get it now."


End file.
